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The other captain was a man of middle age, from Lyons, the son of an architect. He was tall and pale and his large brown eyes had the tranquillity of a devout faith in them. He argued with quiet tenacity for his convictions.

“You are right to believe in her,” said he, “but I think you are mistaken to deny her ‘voices.’ They were as real as anything in her life. You credit her when she says that she was born here, that she went to Chinon and saw the king, that delivered Orleans. Why not credit her when she says she heard God and the saints speaking to her? The proof of it was in what she did. Have you read the story of her trial? How clear and steady her answers were! The judges could not shake her. Yet at any moment she could have saved her life by denying the ‘voices.’ It was because she knew, because she was sure, that she could not deny. Her vision was a part of her real life. She was the mother of French patriotism–yes. But she was also the daughter of true faith. That was her power.”

“Well,” said the younger man, “she sacrificed herself and she saved France. That was the great thing.”

“Yes,” said the elder man, stretching his hand across the table to clasp the hand of his companion, “there is nothing greater than that. If we do that, God will forgive us all.”

They put on their caps to go. Pierre rose and stood at attention. They returned his salute with a friendly smile and passed out.

After a few moments he finished his bread and wine, paid his score, and followed them. He watched them going down the village street toward the railway station. Then he turned and walked slowly back to the spring in the dell.

The afternoon was hot, in spite of the steady breeze which came out of the north. The air felt as if it had passed through a furnace. The low, continuous thunder of the guns rolled up from Verdun, with now and then a sharper clap from St. Mihiel.

Pierre was very tired. His head was heavy, his heart troubled. He lay down among the ferns, looking idly at the foxglove spires above him and turning over in his mind the things he had heard and seen at Domremy. Presently he fell into a profound sleep.

How long it was he could not tell, but suddenly he became aware of some one near him. He sprang up. A girl was standing beside the spring.

She wore a bright-red dress and her feet were bare. Her black hair hung down her back. Her eyes were the color of a topaz. Her form was tall and straight. She carried a distaff under her arm and looked as if she had just come from following the sheep.

“Good day, shepherdess,” said Pierre. Then a strange thought struck him, and he fell on his knees. “Pardon, lady,” he stammered. “Forgive my rudeness. You are of the high society of heaven, a saint. You are called Jeanne d’Arc?”

She nodded and smiled. “That is my name,” said she. “Sometimes they call me La Pucelle, or the Maid of France. But you were right, I am a shepherdess, too. I have kept my father’s sheep in the fields down there, and spun from
the distaff while I watched them. I know how to sew and spin as well as any girl in the Barrois or Lorraine. Will you not stand up and talk with me?”

Pierre rose, still abashed and confused. He did not quite understand how to take this strange experience–too simple for a heavenly apparition, too real for a common dream. “Well, then,” said he, “if you are a shepherdess, why are you here? There are no sheep here.”

“But yes. You are one of mine. I have come here to seek you.”

“Do you know me, then? How can I be one of yours?”

“Because you are a soldier of France and you are in trouble.”

Pierre’s head drooped. “A broken soldier,” he muttered, “not fit to speak to you. I am running away because I am afraid of fear.”