But this school had been the object of Rendalen's life; if he were to lose this there would be nothing left for him. From the time that Augusta died, and he learned that it would be better that he should not found a family, the idea of taking his mother's school, and making it all that she had dreamed of, but had not accomplished, had been betrothal, marriage, and the foundation of a family to him. He was proud of it. This gave the intense energy to his early youth, to his work, to his sense of right. It was the object of Karl Vangen's unfailing admiration, the secret text for Fru Rendalen's conversations and letters. Notwithstanding this, temptations came, and his unruly nature did not always emerge victorious from them, but each time he was seized with a feeling of shame for his ideal, which amounted to dread--that awful dread which his mother had felt while she bore him under her bosom. She had often described this in vivid colours, but it was nothing compared to what he had gone through; it had been terrible. This drove him back to his mother's confidence, and made him hold that confidence fast. There was sober earnest between these two, they had a common aim in life. It might have been that he would have cast her, his aim of life, and this dread to the winds, if his passions had concentrated themselves on, or been seized by, any one person, for there was a wild energy in him which would have made him cling closely to another; but the hereditary restlessness in his nature mingled one impression with another, his dread had time to come between them with ever stronger force, and it became at last the most powerful of all. The aim of life was saved. From the time that he had conquered, a dissatisfied feeling developed itself; it had always been there; it reminded one of his father's power of imagination, his love of perfection. His studies were forced. Never one thing at a time, but one clashing with the other. If the examination subjects had not in such a special degree been necessary for him, he would never have passed one at all; he was ready long before the time with some things, and was as much behind with others. He was always in advance with the subject he was full of at the moment, it was a link in a visible or ideal entirety. To Karl Vangen, who knew his method of study, it was amazing what he accomplished. It was the same thing with his intercourse with his fellow-creatures; he often seemed to be inattentive, and yet he received original impressions, but they were all on the same lines. He saw images and demonstrations in any thing he was engaged in; not people, but phenomena; not facts, but ideas. As long as Karen Lote was learning his historical method she interested him deeply, but afterwards not in the least; it was much the same with the other teachers, excepting Miss Hall; her teaching was new, and he was eager to see the result of it--first intellectually, then morally.