The others went away; Miss Hall asked them to do so. One could hear in the little room, where they changed their dress, the sound of their returning merriment--one heard them go away, group after group. Although the dinner-bell was ringing, Tora sat there, with Tinka on one side and Nora on the other, and Miss Hall in front of them. Tora had spoken to them several times, and assured them that she was well again now. They all three believed that she had worked too hard at her gymnastics--she believed so herself; but she said, "Oh, what an ugly, horrid man!" The others looked at each other: "Do you mean Niels Fürst?" She did not answer at first: "So that was Niels Fürst?" A little time afterwards she shivered as if from cold, but she did not give any further explanation. She understood what had happened so far as that the gymnastics had been the cause of it. That, being weakened, he had had a singular influence upon her. She would not say a word about it. Miss Hall now went away. The two others sat there still: Tora asked them to do so. It was so nice to hold their hands. CHAPTER III SEPARATED FROM THE OTHERS By the next day Tora had heard that Niels Fürst said she was "out and away the handsomest girl he had seen in Norway." She would not believe it at first, but she heard it on all sides during the next few days. The next time she met Kaja Gröndal she told her the same thing. Tora knew her through Milla, and always spoke to her. She had so far recovered her usual flippancy that she answered that, "If Lieutenant Fürst had not such bad taste, it would have been embarrassing for the rest of the Norwegian girls."