to realize what they mean."

She asked, in an ordinary, level tone:

"What--that the case of France is hopeless?"

"Necessarily. In face of these facts, doubt of it is impossible."

"How can you say that? How can you feel like that?"

"How can I? How could I think or feel in any other way, in the
circumstances? Joan, with these fatal figures before, you, have you
really any hope for France--really and actually?"

"Hope--oh, more than that! France will win her freedom and keep it. Do
not doubt it."

It seemed to me that her clear intellect must surely be clouded to-day.
It must be so, or she would see that those figures could mean only one
thing. Perhaps if I marshaled them again she would see. So I said:

"Joan, your heart, which worships France, is beguiling your head. You are
not perceiving the importance of these figures. Here--I want to make a
picture of them, her eon the ground with a stick. Now, this rough outline
is France. Through its middle, east and west, I draw a river."

"Yes, the Loire."

"Now, then, this whole northern half of the country is in the tight grip
of the English."