Chapter XXI
To get away from the usual crowd of visitors and have a rest, Joan went with Catherine straight to the apartment which the two occupied together, and there they took their supper and there the wound was dressed. But then, instead of going to bed, Joan, weary as she was, sent the Dwarf for me, in spite of Catherine's protests and persuasions. She said she had something on her mind, and must send a courier to Domremy with a letter for our old Père Fronte to read to her mother. I came, and she began to dictate. After some loving words and greetings to her mother and family, came this:
"But the thing which moves me to write now, is to say that when you presently hear that I am wounded, you shall give yourself no concern about it, and refuse faith to any that shall try to make you believe it is serious."
She was going on, when Catherine spoke up and said:
"Ah, but it will fright her so to read these words. Strike them out, Joan, strike them out, and wait only one day—two days at most—then write and say your foot was wounded but is well again—for it surely be well then, or very near it. Don't distress her, Joan; do as I say."
A laugh like the laugh of the old days, the impulsive free laugh of an untroubled spirit, a laugh like a chime of bells, was Joan's answer; then she said—
"My foot? Why should I write about such a scratch as that? I was not thinking of it, dear heart."
"Child, have you another wound and a worse, and have not spoken of it? What have you been dreaming about, that you—"
