Twice a day a gaoler entered with provisions; he made no reply to
Rupert's questions, but shook his head when spoken to.
For the first week Rupert bore his imprisonment with cheerfulness,
but the absolute silence, the absence of anything to break the
dreary monotony, the probability that he might remain a prisoner
all his life, was crushing even to the most active and energetic
temperament.
At the end of a month the gaoler made a motion for him to follow
him. Ascending the stairs to a great height, they reached the
platform on the top of the tower.
Rupert was delighted with the sight of the sky, and of the
wide-spreading fields--even though the latter was covered with
snow. For a half-an-hour he paced rapidly round and round the
limited walk. Presently the gaoler touched him, and pointing below,
said:
"Look!"
Rupert looked over the battlement, and saw a little party issue
from a small postern gate far below him, cross the broad fosse, and
pause in an open space formed by an outlying work beyond. They bore
with them a box.
"A funeral?" Rupert asked.
The man nodded.
"They all go out at last," he said, "but unless they tell what they
are wanted to tell, they go no other way."
Five minutes later Rupert was again locked up in his cell, when he
was, in the afternoon of the same day, visited by the governor, who
asked if he would say where he had taken Mademoiselle Pignerolles.
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