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.
"You may as well answer," he said. "You will never go out alive unless you do."
Rupert shook his head.
"I do not admit that I know aught concerning the lady you name; but did I so, I should prefer death to betraying her."