“There is news,” he told them in trembling accents. “It is all over. Poor Jeanne!” He paused abruptly, and covered his face with his hands.
“What do you mean, Colin?” cried Mengette, while Hauviette grew white, and clasping her hands over her heart stood waiting the answer with bated breath. “Is she––is she dead?”
Colin nodded. “Burned,” he said briefly. “As a heretic and a sorceress. The Curé has just received word.”
“Oh,” gasped Mengette. “It can’t be true; it can’t be!” But Hauviette could not speak. More than the others had she loved Jeanne.
“Yes; it’s true,” affirmed Colin with emotion. “And to think that I teased her so. And made her go to Toul, and, and––” His voice broke.
At this Hauviette recovered herself a little, and laid her hand softly on his arm.
“She forgave that, Colin, I know,” she said comfortingly. “Jeanne would harbour naught against you.”
“I know,” he said. “For when she left Domremy for Vaucouleurs she stopped as she passed through Greux, and said: ‘I go to Vaucouleurs, Colin. God give you good fortune.’ And He has,” continued the young man, “for I have prospered 388 beyond any other in the village. ’Tis as though her mere wish had brought it to pass.”
“Perhaps it did,” said the maiden gently, finding comfort for her own grief in consoling him. “But see! Mengette has gone to Jacques and Isabeau. Let us go also, that we may comfort them. Jeanne would like us to do that.”
“You are like her,” he said, looking up at her suddenly, and taking the little hand that lay so lightly upon his sleeve. “You think of others before yourself. Yes; let us go to them.”