About two hours afterwards, Charles le Goffic, former law-student, clad, as usual, in Breton costume, with an officer in English uniform behind him, knocked upon the door of a shed in the Chouan cantonments at St. Pierre, at the lower end of the peninsula, and, receiving a command to enter, did so. Inside were a trestle table, a couple of chairs, a bed of dried seaweed, and La Vireville. "Monsieur Augustin," said Le Goffic, "here is M. le Capitaine de St. Four, sent by the Général Comte d'Hervilly." His leader, seated at the table in this his headquarters, looked up from his writing. "I will see him at once," said he. "Be sure that the door is shut, Charles, and put a sentry outside." And so Fortuné de la Vireville's one-time best friend, who had done him the worst injury, almost, that one man can do another, came in and saluted him, and they confronted one another as they had done ten years ago, when the scar on La Vireville's face was a bright wound. But if the thought of that meeting was in both their minds, La Vireville at least gave no sign of it. Standing by the table he punctiliously returned the newcomer's salute. "I am glad to see you, M. de St. Four," he said, in level tones, "so that we can settle the little matter of our relations to each other at the outset, and have done with it. We shall almost certainly be attacking the Republican position in a day or two, therefore it is as well to have them defined, if only for that reason." "You can disembarrass yourself of me then," said the other, in a scarcely audible voice. La Vireville shook his head. "If you are going to have those ideas we shall never get on. As you may imagine, this situation is none of my seeking, as I am sure it is none of yours. But since we are now in an official relation to each other, I should wish, for the sake of our common aim, to behave to you exactly as I should to any other officer who had been assigned to me in this capacity. If I am always to feel that you are expecting to be treated as Uriah was treated by David, the state of affairs will become very difficult. Of course, I quite understand that you suspect me of such a design . . . though you must admit that I should not stand to gain, now, what David gained by it." A flash of bitter mockery passed over his face, and, brief as it was, seemed to sear the other's into agony. "Yes!" he broke out passionately, "if you lost, I lost too! A year was all I had--and for that I threw away my honour--and your friendship. And then I in my turn was thrown away. God! God!" He turned away, shaking. La Vireville stood like a statue, as he had stood all along, his finger-tips just resting on the table. His eyes indeed followed St. Four, who went at last to the little window, and stood by it with his back to him, pulling at a piece of loose planking. But the life in them was of an icy quality, and when he spoke it was as if the other man's outburst had never been.