This
discovery had surprised Pierre, and he had questioned, Doctor Chassaigne
concerning it. The latter thereupon remembered that his friend, Michel
Froment, had at one time passionately devoted himself to the study of
Bernadette's case; and he himself, a native of the village near Lourdes,
had procured for the chemist a portion of the documents in the
collection. Pierre, in his turn, then became impassioned, and for a whole
month continued studying the affair, powerfully attracted by the
visionary's pure, upright nature, but indignant with all that had
subsequently sprouted up--the barbarous fetishism, the painful
superstitions, and the triumphant simony. In the access of unbelief which
had come upon him, this story of Lourdes was certainly of a nature to
complete the collapse of his faith. However, it had also excited his
curiosity, and he would have liked to investigate it, to establish beyond
dispute what scientific truth might be in it, and render pure
Christianity the service of ridding it of this scoria, this fairy tale,
all touching and childish as it was. But he had been obliged to
relinquish his studies, shrinking from the necessity of making a journey
to the Grotto, and finding that it would be extremely difficult to obtain
the information which he still needed; and of it all there at last only
remained within him a tender feeling for Bernadette, of whom he could not
think without a sensation of delightful charm and infinite pity.

The days went by, and Pierre led a more and more lonely life. Doctor
Chassaigne had just left for the Pyrenees in a state of mortal anxiety.
Abandoning his patients, he had set out for Cauterets with his ailing
wife, who was sinking more and more each day, to the infinite distress of
both his charming daughter and himself. From that moment the little house
at Neuilly fell into deathlike silence and emptiness. Pierre had no other
distraction than that of occasionally going to see the Guersaints, who
had long since left the neighbouring house, but whom he had found again
in a small lodging in a wretched tenement of the district. And the memory
of his first visit to them there was yet so fresh within him, that he
felt a pang at his heart as he recalled his emotion at sight of the
hapless Marie.

That pang roused him from his reverie, and on looking round he perceived
Marie stretched on the seat, even as he had found her on the day which he
recalled, already imprisoned in that gutter