d from
the carriage as though he were a patient who had simply fainted, the mob
of pilgrims paying no further attention to him amidst all the emotion of
their arrival. Preceded by the Baron, the bearers carried the corpse into
a goods office, where they provisionally lodged it behind some barrels;
one of them, a fair-haired little fellow, a general's son, remaining to
watch over it.

Meanwhile, after begging Ferrand and Sister Saint-Francois to go and wait
for her in the courtyard of the station, near the reserved vehicle which
was to take them to the Hospital of Our Lady of Dolours, Sister Hyacinthe
returned to the railway carriage and talked of helping her patients to
alight before going away. But Marie would not let her touch her. "No,
no!" said the girl, "do not trouble about me, Sister. I shall remain here
the last. My father and Abbe Froment have gone to the van to fetch the
wheels; I am waiting for their return; they know how to fix them, and
they will take me away all right, you may be sure of it."

In the same way M. Sabathier and Brother Isidore did not desire to be
moved until the crowd had decreased. Madame de Jonquiere, who had taken
charge of La Grivotte, also promised to see to Madame Vetu's removal in
an ambulance vehicle. And thereupon Sister Hyacinthe decided that she
would go off at once so as to get everything ready at the hospital.
Moreover, she took with her both little Sophie Couteau and Elise Rouquet,
whose face she very carefully wrapped up. Madame Maze preceded them,
while Madame Vincent, carrying her little girl, who was unconscious and
quite white, struggled through the crowd, possessed by the fixed idea of
running off as soon as possible and depositing the child in the Grotto at
the feet of the Blessed Virgin.

The mob was now pressing towards the doorway by which passengers left the
station, and to facilitate the egress of all these people it at last
became necessary to open the luggage gates. The _employes_, at a loss how
to take the tickets, held out their caps, which a downpour of the little
cards speedily filled. And in the courtyard, a large square courtyard,
skirted on three sides by the low buildings of the station, the most
extraordinary uproar prevailed amongst all the vehicles of divers kinds
which were there jumbled together. The hotel omnibuses, backed against
the curb of the footway, displayed the most sacred names on their large
boards--Jesus and Mary, St. Michel, the Rosary