"God knows, I believed it was one of the best acts of my life, and now I am told it is the worst." Tears bedewed her spectacles, and as usual she turned her attention to them as she sat down. Nora rose and came forward sympathetically. "But, dear Fru Rendalen." She knelt down beside her. The old lady wanted this friendliness, wanted some one to confide in, and so Nora learned that "Tomasine" was Tomas's sister. The girl had begun well, but from the time that she had gone to America she fell into bad ways, and was sent home again, out of her mind. Fru Rendalen had paid for her till her death. She had been entirely silent about it to her son--why need he know of it? But now he fell upon her with the most frightful accusations. The dead girl had had the same right in her father's fortune as he; the law on this subject was vile, no honourable person could abide by it. In the most violent words he had cast his sister's misfortune in Fru Rendalen's face. _She_ was responsible for it. Nora was dismayed. She had heard one or two things said since she had been up here, but this----! Rendalen's manner during the time which followed frightened her, if possible, still more; she suffered almost as much as Fru Rendalen. He treated his mother distantly and coldly when he was obliged to be with her; as a rule he avoided her. From the time he was a boy Tomas had at times felt her to be coarse-grained and wanting in refinement, as though he had no relationship with her. The feeling had always yielded to gratitude, and to the similarity in their views and purposes of life; and, whatever his feelings might be, he nourished a constant admiration for her strength and power of government. His ill-temper had always come suddenly, and passed away directly. It was quite the contrary at a later time. His mother did not understand all this, neither did Karl, but they realised that he was unhappy. He seemed to them to be in a growing state of self-torment, and in this they were not mistaken. He would discover, with all the ingenuity of a _Kierkegaard_, that if _he_ had never existed, his sister would have lived happily. She would have had the property then, and the hereditary tendency would not have grown into insanity; or he would picture his sister brought up there with him, with Augusta, and with the other girls, in the garden, in the school; all those strangers had admittance here, she only had not--his sister, his father's daughter. That his mother could with an easy conscience buy herself free from this imperative duty, and that with a few paltry daler a month; that she had never felt that more was demanded of her!--what a crime had been committed against the unfortunate girl, and she had never once comprehended this!