Dinard is the setting of Anthony Cade’s attempt to verify Mademoiselle Brun’s past. His interview with the Comtesse de Breteuil establishes that Brun was a genuine governess, not an invented identity, and overturns a theory that had seemed to connect her with a French stranger involved in the Chimneys intrigue.

The Governess’s Documented Past

Mademoiselle Brun’s association with Dinard comes through the Comtesse de Breteuil and her château. When Anthony questions Bundle about the woman’s background, Bundle identifies the Comtesse as the person with whom Brun had lived. Anthony checks whether Bundle had met the Comtesse herself or knew the story only through correspondence; Bundle confirms that it was all done by letter. The exchange distinguishes second-hand information from Anthony’s later direct inquiry.

Anthony’s Investigation

Anthony travels to Dinard and interviews the Comtesse, expecting his suspicion to be confirmed: he thinks the governess may be a fictitious person and is prepared to discover that the household has never heard of her. The result is the opposite. The Comtesse says Brun had been a mainstay of her household for seven years, a substantial and independently attested history that makes the invented-governess theory untenable unless the Comtesse herself is implicated.

Anthony later recounts the visit to Virginia Revel, admitting that he had been pleased with his own cleverness and had expected the interview to validate his theory. Virginia reinforces the Comtesse’s credibility, saying she knows her well and considers her above suspicion. She also recalls having seen Brun at the château, though only as a familiar face among the governesses and companions she had not closely noticed.

A Clue That Fails

The investigation began with a pattern Anthony found persuasive: a French governess inside the house and a French stranger outside it. He inferred that the two were working together and went to France to test the connection. Dinard instead confirms Brun’s ordinary professional history. Anthony recognizes that his initial instinct, formed when he spoke to her, had already suggested he was on the wrong track; the Comtesse’s evidence makes that doubt decisive.

Dinard therefore functions less as the source of a solution than as a check on an attractive false lead. The journey costs Anthony effort and expense, but it clears Mademoiselle Brun’s character and prevents her genuine past from being mistaken for proof of conspiracy. The episode also shows how the investigation’s network of letters, personal testimony, and remembered encounters can both generate suspicions and correct them.