and bring them to her, and would lead her to speak of romances which she loved, no less than I, and of pages who had loved queens, and all such matters as young men and maids are wont to devise of; and now she would listen, and at other seasons would seem proud, and as if her mind were otherwhere.  Young knights many came to our booth, and looked ill-pleased when I served them, and their eyes were ever on the inner door, watching for Elliot, whom they seldom had sight of.

So here was I, in a double service, who, before I met Brother Thomas, had been free of heart and hand.  But, if my master’s service irked me, in that other I found comfort, when I could devise with Elliot, as concerning our country and her hopes for the Maid.  But my own hopes were not high, nor could I mark any sign that she favoured me more than another, though I had the joy to be often in her company.  And, indeed, what hope could I have, being so young, and poor, and in visible station no more than any ’prentice lad?  My heart was much tormented in these fears, and mainly because we heard no tidings that the Maid was accepted by the Dauphin, and that the day of her marching, and of my deliverance from my base craft of painting, was at hand.

It so fell out, how I knew not, whether I had shown me too presumptuous for an apprentice, or because of any other reason, that Elliot had much forborne my company, and was more often in church at her prayers than in the house, or, when in the house, was busy in divers ways, and I scarce ever could get word of her.  Finding her in this mood, I also withdrew within myself, and was both proud and sorely unhappy, longing more than ever to take my own part in the world as a man-at-arms.  Now, one day right early, I being alone in the chamber, copying a psalter, Elliot came in, looking for her father.  I rose at her coming, doffing my cap, and told her, in few words, that my master had gone forth.  Thereon she flitted about the chamber, looking at this and that, while I stood silent, deeming that she used me in a sort scarce becoming my blood and lineage.

Suddenly she said, without turning round, for she was standing by a table gazing at the pictures in a Book of Hours—­

“I have seen her!”

“The Pucelle?—­do you speak of her, gentle maid?”

“I saw her and spoke to her, and heard her voice”; and here her own broke, and I guessed that she was near to weeping.  “I went up within the castle precinct, to the tower Coudraye,” she said, “for I knew that she lodged hard by, with a good woman who dwells there.  I passed into the chapel of St. Martin on the cliff, and there heard the voice of one praying before the image of Our Lady.  The voice was even as you said that day—­the sweetest of voices.  I knelt beside her, and prayed aloud for her and for France.  She rested her hand on my hair—­her hair is black, and cut ‘en ronde’ like a man’s.  It is true that they say, she dresses in man’s garb.  We came forth together, and I put my hand into hers, and said, ’I believe in you; if none other believes, yet do I believe.’  Then she wept, and she kissed me; she is to visit me here to-morrow, la fille de Dieu—­”