“If it should so happen that Mr. Bourke should come, or telegraph, or that anything should happen before—11.16—I can delay it that long—just you be on hand to make a bolt. It ain’t like Mr. Bourke to sit down and do nothing. I feel it in my bones that he’s moving heaven and earth this minute.” XXVI It was five minutes after eleven. Patience sat on the edge of her bed, her hands clenched, her face grey. But she was calm. The horror and sinking which had almost mastered her as the warden read the death warrant, she had fought down and under. And she had drunk a quantity of black coffee. She had but one thought, one desire left,—to die bravely. Even Bourke was forgotten, and hope and regret. She was conscious of but one passionate wish, not to quail, not for a second. Perhaps there was a slight touch of the dramatic instinct, even in this last extremity, for she imagined the scene and her attitude again and again. In consequence, there was a sense of unreality in it all. She felt as if about to play some great final act; she could not realise that the climax meant her own annihilation. Physically she was very tired, and should have liked to lie down for hours, although the coffee had routed sleep. Once she half extended herself on the bed, then sat erect, her mouth contracting spasmodically. Suddenly she heard the noise of many feet shuffling on a bare floor. She knew that it came from the execution room. She shuddered and bit her lips. Now and again, through the high windows, came the shrill note of a woman’s voice, or a baby’s soft light laugh. A moment later she sprang to her feet, quivering in every nerve, her hands clenched in a final and successful attempt at absolute self-mastery. On the door separating the Death House from the main building, resounded three loud raps, slow and deliberate. They reverberated in the ears of the condemned like the blast of the last trumpet. The door opened, and the head-keeper entered, walking slowly, and stopping once to hold whispered converse with the death watch. Patience controlled an impulse to call to him to hurry and have it over. He came forward at last, tapping his malacca stick on the floor, unlocked the door of her cell, and offered her his arm. He bent to her ear as if to whisper something, then evidently thought better of it, and led her slowly to the passage facing the execution room. Again she wanted to ask him to hurry, but dared not speak. The death watch turned away his head. The lace of her low shoe untied, and she stooped mechanically and fastened it. The head-keeper asked her if she would like some brandy,—he would send and get it for her. She shook her head emphatically. The exaltation of heroism was beginning to possess her, and she would give no newspaper the chance to say that she owed her fortitude to alcohol.