Passing yesterday along the line where the great French army stands before its powerful opponent, and marking the spirit of courage and aspiration which makes it seem like a long line of living light, I saw a familiar face in the regions outside the physical. I paused, highly pleased at the encounter, and the sylph--for it was a sylph whom I met--paused also with a little smile of recognition. Do you recall in my former book the story of a sylph, Meriline, who was the companion and familiar of a student of magic who lived in the rue de Vaugirard in Paris? It was Meriline that I met above the line of light which shows to wanderers in the astral regions where the soldiers of _la belle France_ fight and die for the same ideal which inspired Jeanne d'Arc--to drive the foreigner out of France. "Where is your friend and master?" I asked the sylph, and she pointed below to a trench which spoke loud its determination to conquer. "I am here, to be still with him," she said. "And can you speak to him here?" I asked. "I can always speak with him," she answered. "I have been very useful to him--and to France." "To France?" I enquired, with growing interest. "Oh, yes! When his commanding officer wants to know what is being plotted over there, he often asks my friend, and my friend asks me." "Truly," I thought, "the French are an inspired people, when the officers of armies ask guidance from the realm of the invisible! But had not Jeanne her visions?" "And how do you gain the information desired?" I asked, drawing nearer to Meriline, who seemed more serious than when we met some years before in Paris. "Why," she answered, "I go over there and look around me. I have learned what to look for, he has taught me, and when I bring him news he rewards me with more love." "And do you love him still, as of old?" "As of old?" "Yes, as you did back there in Paris." "Time must have passed slowly with you," said the sylph, "if you call a few years ago 'as of old'." "Are a few years, then, as nothing?" "A few years are as nothing to me," she replied. "I have lived a long time." "And do you know the future of your friend?" I asked. A puzzled look came over the face of Meriline, and she said, slowly: "I used to know everything that would happen to him, because I could read his will, and whatever he willed came to pass; but since we have been out here he seems to have lost his will." "Lost his will!" I exclaimed, in surprise. "Yes, lost his will; for he prays continually to a great Being whom he loves far more than me, and he always prays one prayer, 'Thy will be done!' It used to be his will which was always done; but now, as I say, he seems to have lost his will." "Perhaps," I said, "it is true of the will as was once said of the life, and he that loses his will shall find it."