Patience Sparhawk and her Times

When she reached home she forgot her horror of death chambers, and went to Miss Tremont's room and flung herself on the bed. She did not cry-her tears had all been spent; but she felt something of the profound misery of the last year in Monterey. During the intervening years she had seen little of the cloven hoof of human nature; the occasional sin over on Hog Heights hardly counted; creatures of the lower conditions had no high lights to make the shadows startling. But to-day the horror of old experiences rushed over her; she was filled with a profound loathing of life, of human nature.

So far, of love, in its higher sense-if it possessed such a part-she had seen nothing; of sensuality, too much. True, she had spent two weeks with Miss Galpin, during that estimable young woman's engagement; but Miss Galpin took love as a sort of front-parlour, evening-dress affair, and Patience had not deigned to be interested. She had speculated somewhat over Miss Tremont's early romance, but could only conclude that it was one of those undeveloped little histories that so many old maids cherish.