"There is," he signalled, "one chance alone, be confined with some prisoner whose release may come while you are together. Then to send a message to your friends. By word of mouth alone. No written line can go forth. All are searched for letters ere they are let go." Bertie thought a moment, then he asked: "Can I get changed to another room?" Again Falmy shook his head gloomily and pondered. But another thought appeared to come to his mind, and he signalled: "You will be changed ere long if you are not released or examined. None remain in the chapel who are to stay in this devil's den. I have made many friends at your window, and lost them all. Soon I shall lose you," and as he finished the last word Bertie saw Falmy's face working piteously and knew that he wept. And he, his heart torn with both their griefs, wept too, and left his window suddenly to throw himself on his bed. And still the days went on, and the weeks, and he knew, by the notches he made on the wall as each fresh dawn broke, as well as by the increased cold, that the depth of winter had come. On the roof of the Tour de la Bertaudière he could see the snow lying now, or heard it fall into the garden with a thud when a slight thaw happened, while the cold became so intense that neither he nor Falmy could stay long at the window to communicate with each other. He had given various little orders to Bluet for payment out of his stock of Louis d'ors during this time, so that the man still looked after him well, and he had a few fagots of wood allowed him, or rather found him, in consequence, over which he would sit and shiver, though the large bulging bars in front of the grate prevented him from getting near enough to the sticks to derive much warmth from them. And often he was driven to seek his pallet and lie huddled up in the foul bedding to keep himself from perishing. And still the weeks went on now, and he was there, though he had begged the turnkey to ask the Governor to remove him to a warmer and smaller room, and also to some place where he might have company. But Bluet had only shrugged his shoulders and said that such a request was useless, adding that De Launey was a brigand who would do nothing until it pleased him. "Yet," replied Bertie, "he said he would do his best for me and make me comfortable. Comfortable! comfortable! My God!" "Poof! poof?" exclaimed Bluet. "You must not believe in him. He is full of words to those who come in--_le sal Gascon!_--because he knows not how soon they may go out again, nor whether they may not have come in by mistake--as _mon Dieu!_ many have--nor what trouble those who go out may plunge him into. But once he finds they are not going--that is to say, not going just at once--why, then he possesses the Bastille memory which, _ma foi!_ means an agreeable forgetfulness. _Tenez!_ have no hopes from that shivering _escargot!_" "I am doomed, then, to die in this vault--to be killed by the cold and the draughts!"