nd crossed themselves; and I
heard Lefevre mutter:

"It was beyond the wisdom of man to devise that answer. Whence comes
this child's amazing inspirations?"

Beaupere presently took up his work again, but the humiliation of his
defeat weighed upon him, and he made but a rambling and dreary business
of it, he not being able to put any heart in it.

He asked Joan a thousand questions about her childhood and about the oak
wood, and the fairies, and the children's games and romps under our dear
Arbre Fee Bourlemont, and this stirring up of old memories broke her
voice and made her cry a little, but she bore up as well as she could,
and answered everything.

Then the priest finished by touching again upon the matter of her
apparel--a matter which was never to be lost sight of in this still-hunt
for this innocent creature's life, but kept always hanging over her, a
menace charged with mournful possibilities:

"Would you like a woman's dress?"

"Indeed yes, if I may go out from this prison--but here, no."

8 Joan Tells of Her Visions

THE COURT met next on Monday the 27th. Would you believe it? The Bishop
ignored the contract limiting the examination to matters set down in
the proces verbal and again commanded Joan to take the oath without
reservations. She said:

"You should be content I have sworn enough."

She stood her ground, and Cauchon had to yield.

The examination was resumed, concerning Joan's Voices.

"You have said that you recognized them as being the voices of angels
the third time that you heard them. What angels were they?"

"St. Catherine and St. Marguerite."

"How did you know that it was those two saints? How could you tell the
one from the other?"

"I know it was they; and I know how to distinguish them."

"By what sign?"

"By their manner of saluting me. I have been these seven years under
their direction, and I knew who they were because they told me."

"Whose was the first Voice that came to you when you were thirteen years
old?"

"It was the Voice of St. Michael. I saw him before my eyes; and he was
not alone, but attended by a cloud of angels."

"Did you see the archangel and the attendant angels in the body, or in
the spirit?"

"I saw them with the eyes of my body, just as I see you; and when they
went away I cried because they did not take me with them."

It made me see that awful shadow again that fell dazzling white upon her
that day under l'Arbre Fee de Bourlemon