ile you think of forsaking
France. Put that thought away from you, do penance for it, and you will
be absolved from your great sin."

Pierre turned over and lay looking up at the priest's face and at the
blue sky with white clouds drifting across it. He sighed. "Ah, if that
could only be! But I have not the strength. It is impossible."

"All things are possible to him that believeth. Strength will come.
Perhaps Jeanne d'Arc herself will help you."

"She would never speak to a man like me. She is a great saint, very
high in heaven."

"She was a farmer's lass, a peasant like yourself. She would speak to
you, gladly and kindly, if you saw her, and in your own language, too.
Trust her."

"But I do not know enough about her."

"Listen, Pierre. I have thought for you. I will appoint the first part
of your penance. You shall take the risk of being recognized and
caught. You shall go down to that village there and visit the places
that belong to her--her basilica, her house, her church. Then you shall
come back here and wait until you know--until you surely know what you
must do. Will you promise this?"

Pierre had risen and looked up at the priest with tear-stained face.
But his eyes were quieter. "Yes, Father, I can promise you this much
faithfully."

"Now I must go my way. Farewell, my son. Peace in war be with you." He
held out his hand.

Pierre took it reverently. "And with you, Father," he murmured.

The Absolving Dream

Antoine Courcy was one of those who are fitted and trained by nature
for the cure of souls. If you had spoken to him of psychiatry he would
not have understood you. The long word would have been Greek to him.
But the thing itself he knew well. The preliminary penance which he
laid upon Pierre Duval was remedial. It belonged to the true healing
art, which works first in the spirit.

When the broken soldier went down the hill, in the blaze of the
mid-morning sunlight, towards Domremey, there was much misgiving and
confusion in his thoughts. He did not comprehend why he was going,
except that he had promised. He was not sure that some one might not
know him, or perhaps out of mere curiosity stop him and question him.
It was a reluctant journey.

Yet it was in effect an unconscious pilgrimage to the one health-resort
that his soul needed. For Domremy and the region round about are
saturated with the most beautiful story of France. The life of Jeanne
d'Arc, simple and mysterious, humble