Det var hendes skyld, at mødet begyndte sent, men hun turde ikke indrømme det med det samme.

Because sin/sit/sine can only refer back to the subject of the same clause.

Here, the clause is Det var hendes skyld. The grammatical subject is det, not hun. So Danish uses hendes, not sin.

Compare:

• Hun glemte sin taske. = She forgot her own bag.
• Det var hendes skyld. = It was her fault.

Even though hendes refers to the woman mentioned later, sin is not possible here because hun is not the subject of this clause.

Skyld means fault, blame, or responsibility in this context.

So Det var hendes skyld means It was her fault.

A few related expressions:

• Det er min skyld. = It is my fault.
• Han gav mig skylden. = He blamed me.

In this sentence, skyld is part of a very common fixed expression.

Because the possessive hendes already determines the noun.

In Danish, you normally do not use an article together with a possessive:

• hendes bog = her book
• min bil = my car
• deres hus = their house

So:

• hendes skyld = her fault

not something like den hendes skyld.

Det var hendes skyld is a very natural Danish way to say It was her fault.

The det here works much like English it in expressions such as:

• It was my idea
• It was his mistake
• It was her fault

You could build other sentence types in Danish, but Det var hendes skyld is the normal idiomatic wording here.

Here at means that and introduces a subordinate clause.

So the structure is:

• Det var hendes skyld = main clause
• at mødet begyndte sent = subordinate clause explaining what it was her fault that happened

In English, you could say:

• It was her fault that the meeting started late.

So this at is not the infinitive marker to. It is the conjunction that.

Because after at, Danish uses subordinate-clause word order.

In this clause, the subject is mødet and the verb is begyndte:

• at mødet begyndte sent

That is the normal order: subject + verb.

A useful thing to remember is that Danish main clauses and subordinate clauses behave differently. In main clauses, Danish often follows the V2 rule, but in subordinate clauses introduced by words like at, the structure is more straightforward.

Mødet is the definite form, meaning the meeting.

That tells us the speaker is talking about a specific meeting already known from the context.

• et møde = a meeting
• mødet = the meeting

So at mødet begyndte sent means that the meeting started late, not just that a meeting started late.

Turde means to dare.

In the sentence:

• hun turde ikke indrømme det

it means she did not dare admit it or more naturally in English, she didn’t dare admit it.

It expresses lack of courage or willingness because something is difficult, embarrassing, or risky.

Because turde is a modal-like verb and is followed by a bare infinitive.

So Danish says:

• hun turde ikke indrømme det

not:

• hun turde ikke at indrømme det

This is similar to English:

• she dared not admit it
• she didn’t dare admit it

Other common Danish verbs that take a bare infinitive include modal verbs like kan, vil, skal, må, and bør.

Because in a Danish main clause, the sentence adverb ikke normally comes after the finite verb.

Here:

• subject: hun
• finite verb: turde
• adverb: ikke
• infinitive: indrømme

So the order is:

• hun turde ikke indrømme det

This is very typical Danish word order.

Compare:

• Hun kommer ikke. = She is not coming.
• Han kan ikke svømme. = He cannot swim.

Indrømme means to admit.

The det means it, but here it refers to the whole idea mentioned earlier: that it was her fault that the meeting started late.

So:

• hun turde ikke indrømme det = she didn’t dare admit it

You can think of det as standing for:

• at det var hendes skyld
• or more specifically, at mødet begyndte sent på grund af hende

Danish often uses det to refer back to an entire fact or situation.

Med det samme is an idiomatic expression meaning immediately, right away, or at once.

So:

• hun turde ikke indrømme det med det samme = she didn’t dare admit it right away

It is best learned as a set phrase. Word-for-word, it looks like with the same, but that is not how it works in actual meaning.

Examples:

• Kom med det samme! = Come immediately!
• Jeg svarede ikke med det samme. = I didn’t answer right away.

The comma before men is straightforward: men means but, and Danish normally uses a comma before it when it joins two clauses.

The comma before at is also normal in standard Danish punctuation, because at mødet begyndte sent is a subordinate clause.

So the punctuation reflects the sentence structure:

• Det var hendes skyld,
• at mødet begyndte sent,
• men hun turde ikke indrømme det med det samme.

Danish comma usage can feel more explicit than English to learners, especially around subordinate clauses.