He touched his hand to his throat. Would she shave him, in the morning? And cut his hair? Would she bring him a clean shirt so he wouldn’t look so dirty and overgrown when they came for him in the morning? That is, he added with an awkward kind of grimace, if she didn’t disapprove too much of him being anxious about his appearance.

Patience looked at her hands. Of course she would shave him, she said softly. If he thought it would help.

And then, because she wanted very much to lighten the heaviness of the moment, she smiled, and said she hoped she wouldn’t make too much of a mess of it; she’d watched her brother Walter shaving a few times but had no experience herself. Pike said he was sure it would be all right. He trusted her not to hurt him.

When she’d finished shaving him the next morning, and given him Walter’s clean shirt to put on instead of his stinking one, Patience asked him if he wanted her to read something. The twenty-third Psalm was beautiful, she said. It would give him strength, she was sure. Pike said all he wanted was for her to go with him. For ten minutes more they sat quietly. There was the sound of Knapp’s broom moving across the floor of his little office, outside in the yard the rustle of the aspen trees, and then Knapp came with the key, and Sheriff Nye and two of his men, and Dr. Harriman and the hangman from Boulder.

Nye unlocked the chain around Pike’s waist and untied the remaining rope that fastened his legs to the chair, and took him by the arm.

In the yard he asked him if he had any last words and in a strong voice Pike said he wanted to thank Miss Patience Haig for the tasty biscuits and the cordial and the clean shirt and the shave but most of all he wanted to thank her for her sweet quiet company. She was the best and kindest person he had ever known. He had not deserved her but he was grateful and he wished he had something to give her, some small remembrance or lasting token of appreciation to show his gratitude, but he had nothing and all he could hope was that if she ever thought of him after he was dead, it would not be badly.

It was hard to tell, Knapp said later to his wife, what effect this short speech of Pike’s had on Patience Haig, but when the burlap bag came smartly down over Pike’s black eyes and repulsive ravenous features and the floor opened beneath his feet, he was certain Miss Haig struggled with her famous composure; that behind the rough snap of the cloth and the clatter of the scaffold’s wooden machinery, he heard a small high cry escape from her plain upright figure.