from the inn at the forest cross-roads. She
had summoned de Laval to her side, and the lovers had been reconciled.
Her father had died in the winter and the great fortune and wide manors
of the family were now her own. Her lover had fought with Jeanne in the
futile battles of the spring, but he had been far away when in the fatal
sortie at Compiegne the Maid was taken by her enemies. All the summer of
that year he had made desperate efforts at rescue, but Jeanne was
tight in English hands, and presently was in prison at Rouen awaiting
judgment, while her own king and his false councillors stirred not hand
or foot to save her. Sir Guy had hurled himself on Burgundy, and with a
picked band made havoc of the eastern roads, but he could not break the
iron cordon of Normandy. In February they had been wed, but after that
Beaumanoir saw him little, for he was reading Burgundy a lesson in the
Santerre.

Catherine sat at home, anxious, tremulous, but happy. A new-made wife
lives in a new world, and though at times she grieved for the shame of
her land, her mind was too full of housewifely cares, and her heart of
her husband, for long repining. But often the thought of Jeanne drove
a sword into her contentment.... So when she lifted her eyes from her
embroidery and saw the Maid before her, relief and gladness sent her
running to greet her.

Long afterwards till she was very old Catherine would tell of that hour.
She saw the figure outlined against a window full of the amethyst sky of
evening. The white armour and the gay surcoat were gone.

Jeanne was still clad like a boy in a coarse grey tunic and black
breeches, but her boots did not show any dust of the summer roads. Her
face was very pale, as if from long immurement, and her eyes were no
more merry. They shone instead with a grave ardour of happiness, which
checked Catherine's embrace and set her heart beating.

She walked with light steps and kissed the young wife's cheek--a kiss
like thistledown.

"You are free?" Catherine stammered. Her voice seemed to break
unwillingly in a holy quiet.

"I am free," the Maid answered. "I have come again to you as I promised.
But I cannot bide long. I am on a journey."

"You go to the King?" said Catherine.

"I go to my King."

The Maid's hand took Catherine's, and her touch was like the fall of
gossamer. She fingered the girl's broad ring which had come from distant
ancestors, the ring which Sir Aimery of Beaumanoir had worn