How slowly they all seemed to ride, she thought. She wondered how many
of the other men knew that she was chosen to act the part of murderess.
Some of them had been kind to her in a rough way, especially the older
ones.
But even if they did pity her a little, not one among them but would
expect her to do the thing that they would consider obviously her duty.
No one would raise a voice on her behalf, whatever their private
sentiments.
The majority of them would probably look upon her as a heroine, for she
would have rid them of a spy, a traitor.
She could only hope that she might keep her brain clear, her courage
firm till the supreme moment.
Once in the course of that awful day her nerves had given out in
physical collapse, and her shaking hands had let fall the mirror of
Agnes Sorel.
It lay on the floor in her bedroom, broken in three places.
Her early days in Ireland had given her a belief in the omens of good
and evil, for in the "emerald gem of the Western world" superstition
runs riot.
The faith in it was in her blood, though it needed no broken mirror to
tell her what dread thing awaited her, towards which she must advance,
urged by fate.
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