lled from one
pillow to another, and the cases were not always dry. Indeed, it had
been some time since she had pressed her cheek tranquilly upon a
pillow. Night is either sweetest or most wretched; one spends it
recounting one's joys or one's sorrows. Patty was unhappy; and leave
it to youth to gain the full meed of misery. Youth has not the
philosophy of matured age to cast into the balance. Satisfaction in
this workaday world is only momentary. One is never wholly satisfied;
there is always some hidden barb. The child wears the mother's skirts
enviously while the mother mourns her youth. Expectation leads us to
the dividing line of life, and from there retrospection carries us to
the end. Experience teaches us that fire burns and that water
quenches; beyond this we have learned but little.

This morning Patty was up with the dawn. She did not trouble to wake
the groom, but saddled and bridled the horse herself. She mounted and
rode quietly into the street. She did not glance at Warrington's house
while approaching or passing it, but once she had left it in the rear
she turned quickly, flushing as if she had caught herself in some
weakness. She directed the horse toward the west, crossing the city
before she reached the open country. Here the west wind, young and
crisp, blew away the last vestige of heaviness from her eyes. She
urged the horse into a canter and maintained this gait for a mile or
more. Then she reined in to a walk.

Three weeks! And all this time she had not even breathed a word of it,
but had hugged the viper to her heart in silence. She dropped the
reins on the neck of the horse and took a letter from the pocket of
her riding-coat. How many times had she read it? How many times had
fury and rage and despair flashed from her eyes as she read it? She
hated him; she hated her. There was neither honesty nor goodness in
the world; those who preached it lied. Yes, yes! There was one. John,
dear, noble John, he at any rate was honest. But it was all acting on
her part, acting, acting. She had married John as a convenience; she
had made use of his honest love as a cloak. The despicable creature!
And yet, when in her presence, so great was her charm and magnetism,
Patty doubted. After all, it was an anonymous letter, and nothing is
more vile. But who can say to this viper Doubt--"Vanish!" It goes, it
goes again and again; which is to say it always returns. Long ago she
would have confronted her brother's wi