Sylvia had certainly grown thin, and the lines in her face had deepened into furrows.

She looked much older than she had done before she had received her inheritance.

At the same time she puzzled Horace by looking happier, albeit in a struggling sort of fashion.

Either Rose or the inheritance was the cause of the happiness.

Horace was inclined to think it was Rose, especially since she seemed to him more than ever the source of all happiness and further from his reach.
That night he had found in the post-office a story of whose acceptance he had been almost sure, accompanied by the miserable little formula which arouses at once wrath and humiliation.