It was Fate, not lack of love or loyalty, that now set them apart, that had made of their future a path of bitterness.

In his groping mind he rebelled against it, vainly searching for some way out, urging blindly that love could even blot out this thing in time, could erase the crime, leaving them as though it had never been.

Yet he knew better.

Once she spoke out of the haunting silence, her voice sounding strange, her eyes still fixed in that same vacant stare ahead into the gloom.
"Isn't this Mercedes' pony?
I--I thought she rode away on him herself ?" With the words the recollection recurred to him that she did not yet know about that other tragedy.

It was a hard task, but he met it bravely.