"If our not very fruitful conversation is at an end, Madame . . ." he suggested.
There was a little bell on the table near her, and to this she put out a still shaking hand. But before she rang it she showed herself not unconscious of his thought.
"You owe me something, Monsieur, for your triumph over me in the matter of the child. I dare say you think that since this is to be your last day on earth you have paid me that debt. You are wrong." She rang the bell. "You have not paid it yet!"
As his guards took La Vireville away he saw that she had returned to her book, but one hand was pulling at the lace round her wasted throat, and she looked very old. He flattered himself that he had contributed something towards that effect of age.
CHAPTER XXXI
The Paying of the Score
(1)
Quiberon once more, place of intolerable memories, that Fortuné had thought never to see again, and the sea, blue and sparkling, breaking idly on the white sand that a few days had sufficed to wash clean of blood and tears.
It was thus that it had greeted La Vireville's eyes this afternoon, at the end of the long and dusty march back along that via dolorosa from Auray. For when he left Mme. de Chaulnes' presence he was included in a draft that was being taken back to Quiberon to be tried by a commission there. It was in vain that La Vireville had protested that he had already been judged and condemned—that he had, in fact, a right to be shot at Auray. It was useless, and he had to go.
He found himself this evening herded for the night, with these fresh comrades marked for death, in a stone-walled field, with a sentry at every ten paces outside. They were to appear before the commission next morning. Most of them had in their pockets a hunch of bread, but the long hot march had made them very thirsty, and water was hard to come by. La Vireville contrived to procure some, and shared it with a grey-haired émigré of Loyal-Emigrant from Poitou.
"To our last night on earth!" said the old man tranquilly as he took it, and thanked him.