Perhaps they could be made to do Joan a damage.

“Where is the other ring?”

“The Burgundians have it.”

“Where did you get it?”

“My father and mother gave it to me.”

“Describe it.”

“It is plain and simple and has ‘Jesus and Mary’ engraved upon it.”

Everybody could see that that was not a valuable equipment to do devil’s work with.  So that trail was not worth following.  Still, to make sure, one of the judges asked Joan if she had ever cured sick people by touching them with the ring.  She said no.

“Now as concerning the fairies, that were used to abide near by Domremy whereof there are many reports and traditions.  It is said that your godmother surprised these creatures on a summer’s night dancing under the tree called l’Arbre Fee de Bourlemont.  Is it not possible that your pretended saints and angles are but those fairies?”

“Is that in your proces?”

She made no other answer.

“Have you not conversed with St. Marguerite and St. Catherine under that tree?”

“I do not know.”

“Or by the fountain near the tree?”

“Yes, sometimes.”

“What promises did they make you?”

“None but such as they had God’s warrant for.”

“But what promises did they make?”

“That is not in your proces; yet I will say this much:  they told me that the King would become master of his kingdom in spite of his enemies.”

“And what else?”

There was a pause; then she said humbly: 

“They promised to lead me to Paradise.”

If faces do really betray what is passing in men’s minds, a fear came upon many in that house, at this time, that maybe, after all, a chosen servant and herald of God was here being hunted to her death.  The interest deepened.  Movements and whisperings ceased:  the stillness became almost painful.

Have you noticed that almost from the beginning the nature of the questions asked Joan showed that in some way or other the questioner very often already knew his fact before he asked his question?  Have you noticed that somehow or other the questioners usually knew just how and were to search for Joan’s secrets; that they really knew the bulk of her privacies—­a fact not suspected by her—­and that they had no task before them but to trick her into exposing those secrets?

Do you remember Loyseleur, the hypocrite, the treacherous priest, tool of Cauchon?  Do you remember that under the sacred seal of the confessional Joan freely and trustingly revealed to him everything concerning her history save only a few things regarding her supernatural revelations which her Voices had forbidden her to tell to any one—­and that the unjust judge, Cauchon, was a hidden listener all the time?

Now you understand how the inquisitors were able to devise that long array of minutely prying questions; questions whose subtlety and ingenuity and penetration are astonishing until we come to remember Loyseleur’s performance and recognize their source.  Ah, Bishop of Beauvais, you are now lamenting this cruel iniquity these many years in hell!  Yes verily, unless one has come to your help.  There is but one among the redeemed that would do it; and it is futile to hope that that one has not already done it—­Joan of Arc.