When she read a fatal telegram to her saying that all was lost, she had had that empty, collapsing feeling.
Pausing for a moment, in which he sipped some milk, Crozier then continued: "At last my leader died, and the see-saw of fortune began for me; and a good deal of my sound timber was sawed into logs and made into lumber to build some one else's fortune.

When things were balancing pretty easily, I married.

It wasn't a sordid business to restore my fortunes--I'll say that for myself; but it wasn't the thing to do, for I wasn't secure in my position.

I might go on the rocks; but was there ever a gambler who didn't believe that he'd pull it off in a big way next time, and that the turn of the wheel against him was only to tame his spirit?
Was there ever a gambler or sportsman of my class who didn't talk about the 'law of chances,' on the basis that if red, as it were, came up three times, black stood a fair chance of coming up the fourth time?
A silly enough conclusion; for on the law of chances there's no reason why red shouldn't come up three hundred times; and so I found that your run of bad luck may be so long that you cannot have a chance to recover, and are out of it before the wheel turns in your favour.

I oughn't to have married." His voice had changed in tone, his look become most grave, there was something very like reverence in his face, and deprecating submission in his eyes.