I had often ridden beside her on our marches, especially in
the earlier days, when she had not so many to claim her words and
counsels. Methinks she had spoken to Bertrand, to me, and to Sir
Guy de Laval with more freedom respecting her voices and her
visions than to any others, save, perhaps, the King himself, of
whom she had ever said she had revelations for his ear alone. She
would talk to us of things which for the most part she kept locked
away in her own breast; and now when I did ask her what it was that
had robbed her cheek of its colour, and wrapped her in a strange
trance of grave musing, she passed her hand across her eyes, and
then looked at me full, with a strange intensity of gaze.
"If I only knew! If I only knew myself!" she murmured.
"Did your voices speak to you, mistress mine? I have seen you fall
into such musing fits before this, when something has been
revealed; but then your eyes have been bright with joy--this time
they were clouded as with trouble."
"It was when the Duke spoke of other victories," she said,
dreamily; "I seemed to see before me a great confusion as of men
fighting and struggling.
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