And with this Sholto had to be content, and to try and persuade himself that it was at least something toward the desired end. Also he wrote to Kate, saying that it was from the Bastille that Fordingbridge had been brought to execution, and that therefore doubtless it was the Bastille in which Bertie was. And he bade her be of good heart and hope for the best, since one of the principal examiners of prisoners detained in the prisons had promised that his case should be inquired into. "Though he may take months to do it!" the cardinal had said. Verily it seemed as if he had indeed known the man of whom he wrote. For the months passed away outside the Bastille as they were passing away inside, and to those without there came no news of him within; so that, at last, Kate was led almost to believe that, as her husband had lied to her from the very beginning, so he had lied to her at the end. For it seemed to her that if Bertie had ever been in the gloomy fortress, by which she now so often walked and to which she went and stood before and gazed upon, he must have been released ere this, or in some way have found an opportunity of communicating with her. CHAPTER XXVIII. "A KIND OF CHANGE CAME IN MY FATE." It was in the early part of May, 1747, that Fordingbridge had been led out to his doom, and month after month had passed, another May had come and gone, and, at last, another December--the December of 1748--had come round. Then even the hopeless state into which Bertie had been so long plunged was quickened back to life by the behaviour of two people with whom he held some intercourse. Although Falmy and he had almost ceased now, from very weariness during the passage of time--perhaps from heartbrokenness--to communicate much, they did occasionally do so when either considered that he had anything to tell the other that might cause him some faint stir of interest; and one morning the former, appearing at his window, made signs to Bertie that he was about to signal. Then when the other nodded to show that he was attending to him, the Genevese traced on his board the sentence, "Have you heard anything unusual?" To this Bertie, with a bound of his heart--for, in spite of his long incarceration and his growing hopelessness, he still had, although he knew it not, a ray of courage, of presentiment, left in him--shook his head, and by eager facial signs asked Falmy to explain his meaning. But he, whether it might be that he was afraid of communicating too swiftly anything he had gathered, only signalled back, "Say nothing to De Chevagny as yet. It is rumoured that they have remembered him." "Remembered him," thought Bertie, "at last!" and as he so reflected he looked round upon the poor old man sitting with his white head bent over his knees, and wondered if, should this be true, it would be for his good to go forth.