“Then tell it to me,” he said, drawing her into a window recess out of ear shot of the courtiers.
“Gentle Dauphin, when you prayed this morning in your oratory there was a great pain in your heart.”
“True;” nodded Charles.
“And you made a prayer there. Fair Dauphin, did you tell to any one the prayer that you made?”
“No,” he answered gravely. “I did not. ’Tis a prayer that concerns none but myself.”
Then quickly, earnestly, passionately, Jeanne spoke, addressing him familiarly as an inspired prophetess:
“Did you not pray that if you were the true heir of France, and that if justly the kingdom were yours, that God might be pleased to guard and defend you? But that if you were not descended from the royal House of France God would grant you escape from imprisonment or death by permitting you to go into the land of Scotland or Spain, that you might find refuge there?”
Charles’s face grew blank with amazement.
“I did pray that, exactly,” he admitted. “In my heart alone, without pronouncing the words. Speak on, Maiden. Is there aught from your heavenly visitors that would answer that prayer?”
“There is, gentle Dauphin. Know then, to ease thy heart, that I tell thee from Messire, that thou art the true heir of France, and son of the King.”