At length, however, one does not know how, the secret of her double life
came out. No doubt long brooding over these voices, long intercourse
with such celestial visitors, and the mission continually pressed upon
her--meaningless to the child at first, a thing only to shed terrified
tears over and wonder at--ripened her intelligence so that she came at
last to perceive that it was practicable, a thing to be done, a
charge to be obeyed. She had this before her, as a girl in ordinary
circumstances has the new developments of life to think of, and how
to be a wife and mother. And the news brought by every passer-by would
prove doubly interesting, doubly important to Jeanne, in her daily
growing comprehension of what she was called upon to do. As she felt the
current more and more catching her feet, sweeping her on, overcoming all
resistance in her own mind, she must have been more and more anxious to
know what was going on in the distracted world, more and more touched by
that great pity which had awakened her soul. And all these reports were
of a nature to increase that pity till it became overwhelming. The
tales she would hear of the English must have been tales of cruelty
and horror; not so many years ago what tales did not we hear of German
ferocity in the French villages, perhaps not true at all, yet making
their impression always; and it was more probable in that age that every
such story should be true. Then the compassion which no one can help
feeling for a young man deprived of his rights, his inheritance taken
from him, his very life in danger, threatened by the stranger and
usurper, was deepened in every particular by the fact that it was the
King, the very impersonation of France, appointed by God as the head of
the country, who was in danger. Everything that Jeanne heard would help
to swell the stream.

Thus she must have come step by step--this extraordinary, impossible