Of course, it was hard for him to leave Hulda and Joel, but there was no help for it; and he would return as soon as his task was accomplished.
On the seventeenth a greater part of the most wretched day they had ever spent together passed without bringing any new developments.

It had rained incessantly since early morning; the wind was blowing a gale, and the rain dashed fiercely against the window on the side of the house nearest the Maan.
Seven o'clock came.

They had just finished dinner, which had been eaten in profound silence, as if in a house of mourning.

Even Sylvius Hogg had been unable to keep up the conversation.

What could he say that he had not already said a hundred times before?
"I shall start for Christiania to-morrow morning," he remarked at last.