He had delayed his return, and there had been none of his brief communications.
She wrote, as she knew, as she felt, coldly.

She was guided by others, and her name was up before the world, owing to some half-remembered impulsion of past wishes, but her heart was numbed; she was not a woman to have a wish without a beat of the heart in it.

For her name she had a feeling, to be likened rather to the losing gambler's contemplation of a big stake he has flung, and sees it gone while fortune is undecided; and he catches at a philosophy nothing other than his hug of a modest little background pleasure, that he has always preferred to this accursed bad habit of gambling with the luck against him.

Reckless in the cast, she was reckless of success.
Her letter was unanswered.
Then, and day by day more strongly, she felt for her name.

She put a false heart into it.