Seven o'clock
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 ?