at
she had a secret--a secret which she was keeping wholly to herself,
as well from me as from the others. This idea had come to me because
several times she had cut a sentence in two and changed the subject when
apparently she was on the verge of a revelation of some sort. I was to
find this secret out, but not just yet.

The day after the conversation which I have been reporting we were
together in the pastures and fell to talking about France, as usual. For
her sake I had always talked hopefully before, but that was mere lying,
for really there was not anything to hang a rag of hope for France upon.
Now it was such a pain to lie to her, and cost me such shame to offer
this treachery to one so snow-pure from lying and treachery, and even
from suspicion of such baseness in others, as she was, that I was
resolved to face about now and begin over again, and never insult her
more with deception. I started on the new policy by saying--still opening
up with a small lie, of course, for habit is habit, and not to be flung
out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time:

"Joan, I have been thinking the thing all over last night, and have
concluded that we have been in the wrong all this time; that the case
of France is desperate; that it has been desperate ever since Agincourt;
and that to-day it is more than desperate, it is hopeless."

I did not look her in the face while I was saying it; it could not be
expected of a person. To break her heart, to crush her hope with a so
frankly brutal speech as that, without one charitable soft place in
it--it seemed a shameful thing, and it was. But when it was out, the
weight gone, and my conscience rising to the surface, I glanced at her
face to see the result.

There was none to see. At least none that I was expecting. There was a
barely perceptible suggestion of wonder in her serious eyes, but that
was all; and she said, in her simple and placid way:

"The case of France hopeless? Why should you think that? Tell me."

It is a most pleasant thing to find that what you thought would inflict
a hurt upon one whom you honor, has not done it. I was relieved now,
and could say all my say without any furtivenesses and without
embarrassment. So I began:

"Let us put sentiment and patriotic illusions aside, and look at the
facts in the face. What do they say? They speak as plainly as the
figures in a merchant's account-book. One has only to add the two
columns up