Could no glimmer of hope remain that, in that magic "some day" of all young minds, the evil mystery might dissolve?
Could there be no living "happily ever after" in the wake of such a storm?
She had managed to hope for that, and believe in it.
Then, in some way, the news of Alixe's marriage to Ruthven filtered through the family silence.

She had gone straight to Nina, horrified, unbelieving.

And, when the long, tender, intimate interview was over, another unhappy truth, very gently revealed, was added to the growing list already learned by this young girl.
Then Selwyn came.

She had already learned something of the world's customs and manners before his advent; she had learned more since his advent; and she was learning something else, too--to understand how happily ignorant of many matters she had been, had better be, and had best remain.

And she harboured no malsane desire to know more than was necessary, and every innocent instinct to preserve her ignorance intact as long as the world permitted.
As for the man riding there at her side, his problem was simple enough as he summed it up: to face the world, however it might chance to spin, that small, ridiculous, haphazard world rattling like a rickety roulette ball among the numbered nights and days where he had no longer any vital stake at hazard--no longer any chance to win or lose.
This was an unstable state of mind, particularly as he had not yet destroyed the photograph which he kept locked in his despatch box.