She leaped angrily to her feet, stamped viciously into the hall.
"Devil and all," she repeated, "I love him!"
"Pat!" called the Doctor anxiously. "Pat! Where are you going, child?"
"Where do devils live?" Her voice floated tauntingly back from the front door. "Hell, of course!"
[17]
Witch-Doctor
Pat had no intentions, however, of following the famous highway that evening. She stamped angrily down the Doctor's steps, swished her way through the break in the hedge with small regard to the safety of her sheer hose, and mounted to her own porch. She found her key, opened the door and entered.
As she ascended the stairs, her fit of temper at the Doctor passed, and she felt lonely, weary, and unutterably miserable. She sank to a seat on the topmost step and gave herself over to bitter reflections.
Nick was gone! The realization came poignantly at last; there would be no more evening rides, no more conversations whose range was limited only by the scope of the universe, no more breath-taking kisses, the sweeter for his reluctance. She sat mournfully silent, and considered the miserable situation in which she found herself.
In love with a madman! Or worse—in love with a demon! With a being half of whose nature worshiped her while the other half was bent on her destruction! Was any one, she asked herself—was any one, anywhere, ever in a more hopeless predicament?