The commission conferred together. The chef de bataillon seemed to be studying some paper in front of him, glancing off now and again to look at La Vireville very keenly from under his grey eyebrows.
"You have never been in North Brittany then?"
No; he had never in his life left the Morbihan.
"Then you do not know Erquy and Pléneuf?"
Not if those places were in North Brittany. For his part, he did not know where they were.
"Then," inquired the president suavely, "you have never met or even heard of the North Breton Chouan leader called Augustin?"
And in that moment, as La Vireville realised that he was lost, he realised also what Mme. de Chaulnes had meant when she said that the score was yet to pay. This was her real vengeance.
But he made a fight for it. "How could I possibly say that, mon commandant?" he asked, with an air of puzzled innocence. "I do not wish to tell a lie. I may have seen him here at Quiberon. Is that what you mean?"
The president laughed, not unappreciatively. "I suggest to the prisoner that he can indeed see Augustin at Quiberon this very moment, if he will be at the trouble of looking in a mirror."
La Vireville assumed the most bovine air of stupidity at his command, and shook his head. "I do not understand," he answered.