h 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."

"Ay," the governor said, "you might do that; but death is very
preferable to life at Loches."

In a day or two Rupert found himself again desponding.

"This will not do," he said earnestly. "I must arouse myself. Let
me think, what have I heard that prisoners do? In the first place
they try to escape; and some have escaped from places as difficult
as Loches. Well, that is one thing to be thought very seriously
about. In the next place, I have heard of their making pets of
spiders and all sorts of things. Well, I may come to that, but at
present I don't like spiders well enough to make pets of them;
besides I don't see any spiders to make pets of. Then some
prisoners have carved walls, but I have no taste for carving.

"I might keep my muscles in order and my health good by exercise
with the chair and table; get to hold them out at arm's length,
lift the table with one hand, and so on. Yes, all sorts of exercise
might be continued in that way, and the more I take exercise the
better I shall sleep at night and enjoy my meals. Yes, with nothing
else to do I might become almost a Samson here.

"There, now my whole time is marked out--escape from prison, and
exercise. I'll try the last first, and then think over the other."

For a long time Rupert worked away with his furniture until he had
quite exhausted himself; then feeling happier and better than he
had done since he was shut up, he began to think of plans of
escape. The easiest way would of course be to knock down and gag
the gaoler, and to escape in the clothes; but this plan he put
aside at once, as it was morally certain that he should be no
nearer to his escape after reaching the courtyard of the prison,
than he was in the cell. There remained then the chimney, the
loophole, and the solid wall.

The chimney was the first to disappear from the calculation.
L