ge recorded by my eyes in that desolating hour
was Joan of Arc with the grace of her comely youth still unmarred; and
that image, untouched by time or decay, has remained with me all my
days. Now I will go on.

If any thought that now, in that solemn hour when all transgressors
repent and confess, she would revoke her revocation and say her great
deeds had been evil deeds and Satan and his fiends their source, they
erred. No such thought was in her blameless mind. She was not thinking
of herself and her troubles, but of others, and of woes that might
befall them. And so, turning her grieving eyes about her, where rose the
towers and spires of that fair city, she said:

"Oh, Rouen, Rouen, must I die here, and must you be my tomb? Ah, Rouen,
Rouen, I have great fear that you will suffer for my death."

A whiff of smoke swept upward past her face, and for one moment terror
seized her and she cried out, "Water! Give me holy water!" but the next
moment her fears were gone, and they came no more to torture her.

She heard the flames crackling below her, and immediately distress for
a fellow-creature who was in danger took possession of her. It was the
friar Isambard. She had given him her cross and begged him to raise it
toward her face and let her eyes rest in hope and consolation upon it
till she was entered into the peace of God. She made him go out from the
danger of the fire. Then she was satisfied, and said:

"Now keep it always in my sight until the end."

Not even yet could Cauchon, that man without shame, endure to let her
die in peace, but went toward her, all black with crimes and sins as he
was, and cried out:

"I am come, Joan, to exhort you for the last time to repent and seek the
pardon of God."

"I die through you," she said, and these were the last words she spoke
to any upon earth.

Then the pitchy smoke, shot through with red flashes of flame, rolled
up in a thick volume and hid her from sight; and from the heart of
this darkness her voice rose strong and eloquent in prayer, and when by
moments the wind shredded somewhat of the smoke aside, there were veiled
glimpses of an upturned face and moving lips. At last a mercifully swift
tide of flame burst upward, and none saw that face any more nor that
form, and the voice was still.

Yes, she was gone from us: JOAN OF ARC! What little words they are, to
tell of a rich world made empty and poor!

CONCLUSION

JOAN'S BROTHER Jacques died in Dom