again."

Perhaps the like tidings found their way all around, for good news
travels fast as well as bad. At any rate, the ragings presently quieted
down, and the huge concourse crumbled apart and disappeared. And thus we
reached the noon of that fearful Thursday.

We two youths were happy; happier than any words can tell--for we were
not in the secret any more than the rest. Joan's life was saved. We
knew that, and that was enough. France would hear of this day's infamous
work--and then! Why, then her gallant sons would flock to her standard
by thousands and thousands, multitudes upon multitudes, and their wrath
would be like the wrath of the ocean when the storm-winds sweep it; and
they would hurl themselves against this doomed city and overwhelm it
like the resistless tides of that ocean, and Joan of Arc would march
again!

In six days--seven days--one short week--noble France, grateful France,
indignant France, would be thundering at these gates--let us count the
hours, let us count the minutes, let us count the seconds! O happy day,
O day of ecstasy, how our hearts sang in our bosoms!

For we were young then, yes, we were very young.

Do you think the exhausted prisoner was allowed to rest and sleep after
she had spent the small remnant of her strength in dragging her tired
body back to the dungeon?

No, there was no rest for her, with those sleuth-hounds on her track.
Cauchon and some of his people followed her to her lair straightway;
they found her dazed and dull, her mental and physical forces in a state
of prostration. They told her she had abjured; that she had made certain
promises--among them, to resume the apparel of her sex; and that if she
relapsed, the Church would cast her out for good and all. She heard the
words, but they had no meaning to her. She was like a person who has
taken a narcotic and is dying for sleep, dying for rest from nagging,
dying to be let alone, and who mechanically does everything the
persecutor asks, taking but dull note of the things done, and but dully
recording them in the memory. And so Joan put on the gown which Cauchon
and his people had brought; and would come to herself by and by, and
have at first but a dim idea as to when and how the change had come
about.

Cauchon went away happy and content. Joan had resumed woman's dress
without protest; also she had been formally warned against relapsing. He
had witnesses to these facts. How could matters be better?

But s