These words, spoken with vehemence, were the first free utterance Victor Le Roy had given to his feelings all day.  All day they had been concentrating, and now came from him fiery and fast.

It was time for him to know in whom and in what he believed.

Greatly moved by his words, Jacqueline said, giving him the tracts,—­

“I came from Domremy, I am free.  No one can be hurt by what befalls me.  I want to know the truth.  I am not afraid.  Did John Leclerc never give way for a moment?  Is he really to be whipped through the streets, and on the third day to be branded?  Will he not retract?”

“Never!” was the answer,—­spoken not without a shudder.  “He did not flinch through all the trial, Jacqueline.  And his old mother says, ‘Blessed be Jesus Christ and his witnesses!’”

“I came from Domremy,” seemed to be in the girl’s thought again; for her eyes flashed when she looked at Victor Le Roy, as though she could believe the heavens would open for the enlightening of such believers.

“She gave me those to read,” said she, pointing to the tracts she had given him.

“And have you been reading them here by yourself?”

“No.  Elsie and I were to have read them together; but I fell to thinking.”

“You mean to wait for her, then?”

“I was afraid I should not make the right sense of them.”

“Sit down, Jacqueline, and let me read aloud.  I have read them before.  And I understand them better than Elsie does, or ever will.”

“I am afraid that is true, Sir.  If you read, I will listen.”

But he did not, with this permission, begin instantly.

“You came from Domremy, Jacqueline,” said he.  “I came from Picardy.  My home was within a stone’s throw of the castle where Jeanne d’Arc was a prisoner before they carried her to Rouen.  I have often walked about that castle and tried to think how it must have been with her when they left her there a prisoner.  God knows, perhaps we shall all have an opportunity of knowing, how she felt when a prisoner of Truth.  Like a fly in a spider’s net she was, poor girl!  Only nineteen!  She had lived a life that was worth the living, Jacqueline.  She knew she was about to meet the fate her heart must have foretold.  Girls do not run such a course and then die quietly in their beds.  They are attended to their rest by grim sentinels, and they light fagots for them.  I have read the story many a time, when I could look at the window of the very room where she was a prisoner.  It was strange to think of her witnessing the crowning of the King, with the conviction that her work ended there and then,—­of the women who brought their children to touch her garments or her hands, to let her smile on them, or speak to them, or maybe kiss them.  And the soldiers deemed their swords were stronger when they had but touched hers.  And they knelt down to kiss her standard, that white standard, so often victorious!  I have read many a time of that glorious day at Rheims.”