At first she started toward the professor, as if with the intention of speaking to him, then suddenly turning toward the staircase, she disappeared.
Joel, on returning from his sister's room, had hastily left the house.
He experienced a feeling of suffocation in the dwelling over which such a dense cloud of misfortune seemed to be hanging.

He longed for the outer air, the fierce blast of the tempest, and spent a part of the night in wandering aimlessly up and down the banks of the Maan.
Sylvius Hogg was therefore left alone.

Stunned by the stroke at first, he soon recovered his wonted energy.

After tramping up and down the hall two or three times, he paused and listened, in the hope that he might hear a summons from the young girl, but disappointed in this, he finally seated himself at the table, and abandoned himself to his thoughts.
"Can it be possible that Hulda is never to see her betrothed again ?" he said to himself.

"No; such a misfortune is inconceivable.
Everything that is within me revolts at the thought! Even admitting that the 'Viking' has gone to the bottom of the ocean, what conclusive proof have we of Ole's death?
I can not believe it.