"Who is your Lord?"

"It is God," she answered, and bent her head in lowly reverence.

And then I did a strange thing; but it seemed to be forced upon me
from above by a power which I could not withstand. I fell suddenly
to my knees before her, and put up my clasped hands, as we do when
we pay homage for our lands and honours to our liege lord. And, I
speak truth, and nought else, the Maid put her hands over mine just
as our lord or sovereign should do, and though I dare swear she had
never heard my name before, she said:

"Jean de Novelpont de Metz, my Lord receives you as His faithful
knight and servant. He will be with us now and to the end."

And the people all uncovered and stood bareheaded round us, whilst
I felt as though I had received a mandate from Heaven.

Then I went into the house with Jeanne, and asked her of herself,
and of her visions and voices. She told me of them with the gentle
frankness of a child, but with a reverence and humility that was
beautiful to see, and which was in strange contrast to some of the
things she spoke, wherein she told how that she herself was to be
used of Heaven for the salvation of France.

I cannot give her words as she spoke them, sitting there in the
window, the light upon her face, her eyes fixed more often upon the
sunny sky than upon her interlocutor, though now and again she
swept me with one of her wonderful glances. She told me how from a