An extraordinary devotion to her brother André had always been hers from childhood; listening to her, La Vireville thought that so ardent a nature as hers (beating under an exterior that in some ways belied it) must always have needed someone on whom to expend itself, and that having so early found that person, it was singularly fitting that she should never have been forced to transfer her allegiance. For André had never married, and her own marriage, in 1788, to a man many years older than herself, for whom it was evident she had not felt love, but much respect, had left unimpaired the bond between her brother and herself. The Comte de Guéfontaine's death in exile at Hamburg, in 1792, had set her free to serve André and the cause he followed with all her heart and soul. That was the year of the unfortunate Coblentz episode, of which she spoke with far more bitterness than of her brother's death; it was from Coblentz that he had come to her at Hamburg, not yet recovered of the wound to his body, and healed still less of that to his spirit. At Hamburg they had shared the privations of exile--and worse, the slight sneers of compatriots who looked askance at the Marquis de la Vireville's victim. Their pride at last drove them thence to England. And from England André had found the way to Brittany, the command of the Carhoët division, and his death. His sister had been with him all the time, nineteen months--a long spell of life for a Chouan leader. And when he had heard the whole tale and realised what a sensitive pride and what a singularly tender affection his cousin's action had outraged, La Vireville was certainly in no mind to rescind his half-jesting condonation of Raymonde de Guéfontaine's attempt at vengeance. Rather, he ratified it. "Madame," he said when she had ended, "perhaps you can extend some measure of forgiveness to my unhappy cousin when you learn that he gave his life, after all, for the same cause as your brother has done. He died of his wounds after the battle of Charleroi last year." "But that does not undo what he did," she said quite simply. "It does not give André back his honour; it makes no difference at all." "No," answered La Vireville, after a pause, "that is true. It does not." There was a silence. Then she said, leaning forward and looking at him very directly--there was more light now, "M. le Chevalier, I think there are some who love better than they hate, and some who hate better than they love. Could you forgive a mortal injury so readily? . . . But perhaps you have none to forgive?" La Vireville abruptly put his locked hands over his eyes. "Madame," he replied after a moment, "I have had a mortal injury to forgive these ten years--and I have not forgiven it." She was startled, no doubt, at the hard intensity of his tone, and drew back, as one who has stumbled on a grave. "I beg your pardon," she said in a very low voice. "That was impertinent. I ought not to have asked such a question."