the next four days. The rest of it will be gentler--oh, far less bloody.
Yes, in four days France will gather another trophy like the redemption
of Orleans and make her second long step toward freedom!"

Catherine started (and do did I); then she gazed long at Joan like one in
a trance, murmuring "four days--four days," as if to herself and
unconsciously. Finally she asked, in a low voice that had something of
awe in it:

"Joan, tell me--how is it that you know that? For you do know it, I
think."

"Yes," said Joan, dreamily, "I know--I know. I shall strike--and strike
again. And before the fourth day is finished I shall strike yet again."
She became silent. We sat wondering and still. This was for a whole
minute, she looking at the floor and her lips moving but uttering
nothing. Then came these words, but hardly audible: "And in a thousand
years the English power in France will not rise up from that blow."

It made my flesh creep. It was uncanny. She was in a trance again--I
could see it--just as she was that day in the pastures of Domremy when
she prophesied about us boys in the war and afterward did not know that
she had done it. She was not conscious now; but Catherine did not know
that, and so she said, in a happy voice:

"Oh, I believe it, I believe it, and I am so glad! Then you will come
back and bide with us all your life long, and we will love you so, and
honor you!"

A scarcely perceptible spasm flitted across Joan's face, and the dreamy