Tarbox looked at her in amazement. “Oh,” he said, “how do you manage it?”
“All hope is not gone,” she replied; “there is still the governor.” But she knew how slender that hope was. The governor was on the eve of re-election; public feeling was multiplied against her; the “Eye” was clamouring for her life, and strutting like a turkey cock; the “Eye” and Tammany Hall were one; the governor was the creature of Tammany Hall.
The warden was in his office. He greeted her with elaborate politeness, albeit puffed with alcohol and pride. She handed him what valuables she had not presented to Tarbox, and answered his questions in a manner not calculated to placate his Irish dignity. Then she turned to say good-bye to Tarbox, but he had disappeared. The head-keeper, a big kindly man, who pressed her arm in a paternal manner, led her down long echoing corridors, past rows and tiers of cells, and yards full of Things in striped garments, and talked to her in the manner one adopts to a frightened child, until she said:—
“I am not going to have hysterics; nor am I at all sure that I am to be executed—but please don’t imagine that I don’t appreciate your kindness.”
“Well, I like that,” he said. “To tell the truth the prospect of having a woman here has half scared me out of my wits. But if you won’t take on, I’ll do everything I can to make you comfortable. We’ve put a woman servant in there to wait on you. I hope myself it won’t be for long. The evidence is pretty black, but some of us has our opinion all the same.”
“Must I go into the Death House? I think I shouldn’t mind it so much if they’d put me anywhere else.”
“I’m afraid you must, ma’am. That’s the custom in these parts.” He opened a door with a huge key, and Patience did not need to be told that she was in the famous Death House.
A long corridor with a high window at either end; on one side a row of cells separated from the main corridor by an iron fence sufficiently removed from the cells to make space for a narrow promenade. Where the middle cell should have been was a dark arched stone passage terminated by a stout oaken door. Patience knew that it led to the execution room. Two guards walked up and down the corridor. At the end, a sullen-looking woman stood over a stove, making tea.
“You’ve got the house all to yourself,” said the keeper, with an attempt at jocularity. “If there’d been any men here I guess you’d have been sent to Dannemora, but it’s always Sing Sing for the swells, when it’s possible, you know.”
He opened the gate of the iron fence and led her down to the cell at the extreme end. It was large and well lighted, but very different from the cell at White Plains.