Autumn had come. Winter was hard at hand; and before Mid-Lent the
promised succour to France was to arrive through the means of this
maiden--this Jeanne d'Arc.
"He is waiting and watching," spoke Bertrand, as we rode through
the forest, the thinning leaves of which allowed the sunlight to
play merrily upon our path. "He says in his heart that if this
thing be of God, the Maid will come again when the time draws near;
but that if it is phantasy, or if she be deluded of the Devil,
perchance his backwardness will put a check upon her ardour, and we
shall hear no more of it. The Abbe Perigord, his Confessor, has
bidden him beware lest it be a snare of the Evil One"--and as he
spoke these words Bertrand crossed himself, and I did the like, for
the forest is an ill place in which to talk of the Devil, as all
men know.
"But for my part, when I think upon her words, and see again the
look of her young face, I cannot believe that she has been thus
deceived; albeit we are told that the Devil can make himself appear
as an angel of light.
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