Some days had passed since Bevill had heard his doom pronounced by De Violaine in a voice full of emotion; days in which he had stood, sometimes for hours together, at the window of the great cell, which was in truth a room, gazing across the town. Across the town, since the citadel was built on the brow of a hill that overhung it, to where, perhaps, he dreamt that, even at the last moment, succour might be expected to come. For though he did not know that the Comtesse de Valorme and Sylvia had by now contrived to escape out of Liége, he knew that this was the direction in which Marlborough must be; that, if there was any hope to be looked for, it was thence it must arrive. Yet he knew, too, that, if it came, also must it come swiftly. "De Violaine said," he had told himself a hundred times, "that the finding of the Court would be sent at once to the Marshal Tallard for his approval. Ah, well! the time will not be long. With Marlborough as near as he must be by now, Tallard cannot be far away. Whispers filter even through these prison walls; the soldiers amongst whom I am allowed to walk below, and to get the air, are gloomy and depressed. Also, I have caught ere now the name of Venloo on their lips. If Venloo has fallen, then Liége will be the next. It will be its turn. But mine!" Bevill would add, with almost the shadow of a smile upon his face, "will my turn come first?" "And she, my sweet, my love," he would continue. "What of her? Where is she, what is she doing? Yet why ask, why ponder? She is dreaming, musing, thinking of me now, I know; pitying my fate--it may be endeavouring in some way to avert it. Ah! Sylvia, Sylvia, if ere I go from out this world we might stand face to face again; if I might look once more into those fond, pure eyes, and read therein the love that I must part with, leave behind, death would not seem so bitter and parting be lighter sorrow than I deem it now." Yet even as he spoke he chided himself for his consideration of himself alone; for thinking only of the love that he, going out into the darkness, must leave behind, not of the one left behind in a deeper, because a living, darkness. As thus he mused one morning by the spot at the window at which he always stood while these, or similar, reflections occupied his mind, he heard the great bunch of keys in the possession of one of the soldier-gaolers rattling outside, and a moment later heard his cell being unlocked. Knowing that this was not the time for the man to visit him, either to bring food or to take him forth to walk in the courtyard of the citadel, he wondered who might be coming, and, with a leap at his heart, a quick bound of hope, wondered also if it were she who might have obtained admission to him. A moment later De Violaine entered the room, and again Bevill's heart leapt within him, since he could suppose that this visit must bode but one thing, the announcement of the hour fixed for his execution. Wherefore he murmured to himself: