“No, girl,” says I, “anything save that. Pale, but spirited, you know, as one who confronts adversity, yet sets her foot upon it. For to-day, if all things fail, I am persuaded that I’ll receive my enemies and outface them every one.”
I was robed, therefore, with much care, and it pleased me, and also braced my resolution up, to know that my personal charms could not have been displayed to more delicate advantage. I knew that to meet the fierce eyes of my enemies would be the severest ordeal that I had undergone; and yet I did not shrink, but rejoiced rather in the self-elected task. They would expect to see me spiritless and crushed with woe; for they were not aware that I meant to show them what a fortitude was mine. None the less, the time that intervened between now and the coming of the coach that was to bear me to the final scene of all was passed in morbidity and wretchedness. For several days I had sent letters of vague comfort and encouragement to young Anthony, yet the Governor of Newgate refused to allow them to be delivered, and had sent them back again. And now at the last, as the rebel must be ignorant of the efforts I was making, I became haunted with the fear that he might have made an attempt upon his life, for I was certain that, to a person of his high temper, any death was preferable to the one he was doomed to undergo. And then there was the sincerity of Mr. Snark, whose possibilities were ever present, and harrowing my thoughts. Ten minutes before the coach arrived I wrung my hands and cried to the already weeping Mrs. Polly:
“I know for certain that that horrid little man will fail me. He’s got my money, and therefore all he does desire. Oh, why did I give it him! Surely I might have known that he’d undo me!”
“Oh, no, I’m sure he won’t!” says poor Emblem, breaking out in sobs. “I am sure he is a good man, and an honest. I would trust that man under any circumstances.”
“Do you really think so?” cries I, clinging to the weakest straw.
“Yes,” wept Emblem more bitterly than ever, “I am sure Mr. Snark is a good and honest man.”
Very soon the coach was at the door. Even this was a relief, for activity took some of the tension from our minds, and now the very imminence of the thing numbed their aches in some degree. I paid not the slightest heed to the way we went, or to the appearance of the streets, my senses all being deadened with their gloominess. Presently the jolting of the coach grew less, the horses reduced their pace, and the low murmur of the mob uprose. My voice shook pitifully when I said to Emblem, who would insist on accompanying me through everything:
“Are we in good time?”
“The cart is not due for nearly an hour yet,” she answered.
To avoid the press, the coachman turned his horses into an unfrequented by-street, and shortly afterwards brought them to a stand before a door in a row of dismal-looking houses. I sprang out lightly and unconcernedly, not without a signal effort, though, but above all things I was resolved not to give one sign of weakness to the world. It annoyed and somewhat disconcerted me to find that a small company of the vulgar curious was collected about the coach, and more particularly when a fat and dirty-aproned housewife nudged a neighbour and exclaimed, with outstretched finger pointed straight at me: “That’s her! That’s her ladyship! ’aven’t she got a face!”