Methinks there is something in the gradual death of the year which attunes our hearts to a certain gentle melancholy; and perchance this was why Sir Guy’s words had lacked the ring of hopeful bravery that was natural to one of his temperament, and why Bertrand’s eyes were so grave and dreamy, and his voice seemed to come from far away.

“And yet I do bethink me that six months agone I did behold a scene which seems to me to hold within its scope something of miracle and of mystery.  I have thought of it by day, and dreamed of it by night, and the memory of it will not leave me, I trow, so long as breath and being remain!”

We turned and looked at him—­the pair of us—­with eyes which questioned better than our tongues.  Bertrand and I had been comrades and friends in boyhood; but of late years we had been much sundered.  I had not seen him for above a year, till he joined us the previous Wednesday at Nancy, having received a letter I did send to him from thence.  He came to beg of me to visit him at his kinsman’s house, the Seigneur Robert de Baudricourt of Vaucouleurs; and since my thirst for travel was assuaged, and my purse something over light to go to Court, I was glad to end my wanderings for the nonce, in the company of one whom I still loved as a brother.

From the first I had noted that Bertrand was something graver and more thoughtful than had been his wont.  Now I did look at him with wonder in my eyes.  What could he be speaking of?

He answered as though the question had passed my lips.

“It was May of this present year of grace,” he said, “I mind it the better that it was the Feast of the Ascension, and I had kept fast and vigil, had made my confession and received the Holy Sacrament early in the day.  I was in my lodging overlooking the market place, and hard by the Castle which as you know hangs, as it were, over the town, guarding or threatening it, as the case may be, when a messenger arrived from my kinsman, De Baudricourt, bidding me to a council which he was holding at noon that day.  I went to him without delay; and he did tell me a strange tale.

“Not long since, so he said, an honest prud’homme of the neighbouring village of Burey le Petit, Durand Laxart by name, had asked speech with him, and had then told him that a young niece of his, dwelling in the village of Domremy, had come to him a few days since, saying it had been revealed to her how that she was to be used by the God of Heaven as an instrument in His hands for the redemption of France; and she had been told in a vision to go first to the Seigneur de Baudricourt, who would then find means whereby she should be sent to the Dauphin (as she called him), whom she was to cause to be made King of France.”

“Mort de Dieu!” cried Sir Guy, as he gazed at Bertrand with a look betwixt laughter and amaze, “and what said your worshipful uncle to that same message?”