"Or to offer you your life on terms, then?"
"They would undoubtedly be terms that I could not accept."
Mme. de Chaulnes smiled slightly, and laid down her book on a little table near her. "That is a good thing, then, for indeed I have no terms to offer to a person of your integrity, Monsieur. Though, if I had, perhaps you might find them tempting for the sake of the little boy—now, I presume, fatherless—for whom you once risked that life so successfully."
The émigré was silent.
"You are right to give me no answer," went on the old lady, "for really I have no proposition of any kind to make to you. I merely wish to ask you a question, which you will not, I think, find it inconsistent with your honour to answer. But I cannot force you to give me a reply, nor (as you see) do I seek to bribe you into doing so."
"I will answer your question if it be in my power, Madame," said La Vireville, outwardly unmoved and secretly curious.
"Thank you, Monsieur. It is merely this—did you, or did you not, bribe my agent Duchâtel when you took the child from him at Abbeville?"
"No," replied the Chouan on the instant, "most certainly I did not. The only intercourse of any moment that passed between us was a blow."
"Ah," said Mme. de Chaulnes, with an air, real or fictitious, of relief, "that interests me very much. I am greatly indebted to you for your frankness, Monsieur Augustin. Since you can have no motive in protecting Duchâtel—rather the reverse—I believe you unreservedly. He is a useful tool, but there have been moments when I was tempted to consider that transaction at Abbeville a farce. I am glad to learn, on the best authority, that it was not." And taking up a tablet that hung at her waist she scribbled something on it with a silver pencil.
"And it was in order to discover this," broke out the prisoner in spite of himself, "that you were barbarous enough to have me reprieved at the last moment, to——" He pulled himself up, for he had no wish to exhibit his emotions to this woman.