So, then, he rode back to the city, hugging his doubt and his love, with frequent lucid intervals that were devoted to his forthcoming speech. When the battle was over, when he had won or lost, then he would go to her and drink the cup, bitter or sweet. Patty had not spent the night in comfort; her head had rolled 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.