Chapter TwelveDoña Alcira closed the door very quietly behind her and then stood in the centre of her bedroom breathing as if she was on the very edge of exhaustion.
She had exerted her will to control her feelings to such an extent that now, when at last she was alone, every nerve in her body was still tense.
Dragging one foot behind another as an old woman might have done, she walked across the room to stand staring into the mirror as though she was looking at a stranger.
She still could not believe that it was true and still could not credit that her whole world had crashed about her ears. And all because the knife that should have been planted firmly in the breast of the usurper of her powers had failed to find its mark.
Why had she not struck that first evening when, in the Garden
