“I thought he was deceiving himself.  I forbore to tell him lies, for that would have been wrong; but if my truths deceived him, perhaps that made them lies, and I am to blame.  I would God I knew if I have done wrong.”

She was assured that she had done right, and that in the perils and necessities of war deceptions that help one’s own cause and hurt the enemy’s were always permissible; but she was not quite satisfied with that, and thought that even when a great cause was in danger one ought to have the privilege of trying honorable ways first.  Jean said: 

“Joan, you told us yourself that you were going to Uncle Laxart’s to nurse his wife, but you didn’t say you were going further, yet you did go on to Vaucouleurs.  There!”

“I see now,” said Joan, sorrowfully.  “I told no lie, yet I deceived.  I had tried all other ways first, but I could not get away, and I had to get away.  My mission required it.  I did wrong, I think, and am to blame.”

She was silent a moment, turning the matter over in her mind, then she added, with quiet decision, “But the thing itself was right, and I would do it again.”

It seemed an over-nice distinction, but nobody said anything.  I few had known her as well as she knew herself, and as her later history revealed her to us, we should have perceived that she had a clear meaning there, and that her position was not identical with ours, as we were supposing, but occupied a higher plane.  She would sacrifice herself—­and her best self; that is, her truthfulness—­to save her cause; but only that; she would not buy her life at that cost; whereas our war-ethics permitted the purchase of our lives, or any mere military advantage, small or great, by deception.  Her saying seemed a commonplace at the time, the essence of its meaning escaping us; but one sees now that it contained a principle which lifted it above that and made it great and fine.

Presently the wind died down, the sleet stopped falling, and the cold was less severe.  The road was become a bog, and the horses labored through it at a walk—­they could do no better.  As the heavy time wore on, exhaustion overcame us, and we slept in our saddles.  Not even the dangers that threatened us could keep us awake.

This tenth night seemed longer than any of the others, and of course it was the hardest, because we had been accumulating fatigue from the beginning, and had more of it on hand now than at any previous time.  But we were not molested again.  When the dull dawn came at last we saw a river before us and we knew it was the Loire; we entered the town of Gien, and knew we were in a friendly land, with the hostiles all behind us.  That was a glad morning for us.

We were a worn and bedraggled and shabby-looking troop; and still, as always, Joan was the freshest of us all, in both body and spirits.  We had averaged above thirteen leagues a night, by tortuous and wretched roads.  It was a remarkable march, and shows what men can do when they have a leader with a determined purpose and a resolution that never flags.