But when she was back in her own apartments, and I was able to approach her alone, I ventured to ask her something concerning her silence of a short time back.

I always think with a great pride and tender joy of the trust and friendship which the Maid reposed in me, thereby doing me a vast honour.  I had often ridden beside her on our marches, especially in the earlier days, when she had not so many to claim her words and counsels.  Methinks she had spoken to Bertrand, to me, and to Sir Guy de Laval with more freedom respecting her voices and her visions than to any others, save, perhaps, the King himself, of whom she had ever said she had revelations for his ear alone.  She would talk to us of things which for the most part she kept locked away in her own breast; and now when I did ask her what it was that had robbed her cheek of its colour, and wrapped her in a strange trance of grave musing, she passed her hand across her eyes, and then looked at me full, with a strange intensity of gaze.

“If I only knew!  If I only knew myself!” she murmured.

“Did your voices speak to you, mistress mine?  I have seen you fall into such musing fits before this, when something has been revealed; but then your eyes have been bright with joy—­this time they were clouded as with trouble.”

“It was when the Duke spoke of other victories,” she said, dreamily; “I seemed to see before me a great confusion as of men fighting and struggling.  I saw my white banner fluttering, as it were, victoriously; and yet there was a darkness upon my spirit.  I saw blackness—­darkness—­confusion; there was battle and strife—­garments rolled in blood.  My own white pennon was the centre of some furious struggle.  I could not see what it was, waves of black vapour rose and obscured my view.  Then, in the midst of the smoke and vapour, I saw a great pillar of fire, rising up as to the very sky itself, and out of the fire flew a white dove.  Then a voice spoke—­one of my own voices; but in tones different from any I have heard before—­’Have courage, even to death, Jeanne,’ it said, ‘for we will still be with you.’  Then everything faded once more, and I heard only the shouting of the people, and knew that the King had made his decision, and that he had promised to receive his crown, which has waited for him so long.”

As she spoke these last words, the cloud seemed to lift.  Her own wonderful smile shone forth again.

“If this be so; if, indeed, the Dauphin shall be made King, what matters that I be taken away?  My work will end when the crown shall be set upon his head.  Then, indeed, my soul shall say:  ’Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.’”