e if for her, who did not know life,
there should be nothing beyond the tomb? She will live again, I am
absolutely convinced of it, for I still hear her at times, she tells me
that we shall meet, that we shall see one another again. Oh! the dear
beings whom one has lost, my dear daughter, my dear wife, to see them
once more, to live with them elsewhere, that is the one hope, the one
consolation for all the sorrows of this world! I have given myself to
God, since God alone can restore them to me!"

He was shaking with a slight tremor, like the weak old man he had become;
and Pierre was at last able to understand and explain the conversion of
this _savant_, this man of intellect who, growing old, had reverted to
belief under the influence of sentiment. First of all, and this he had
previously suspected, he discovered a kind of atavism of faith in this
Pyrenean, this son of peasant mountaineers, who had been brought up in
belief of the legend, and whom the legend had again mastered even when
fifty years, of positive study had rolled over it. Then, too, there was
human weariness; this man, to whom science had not brought happiness,
revolted against science on the day when it seemed to him shallow,
powerless to prevent him from shedding tears. And finally there was
discouragement, a doubt of all things, ending in a need of certainty on
the part of one whom age had softened, and who felt happy at being able
to fall asleep in credulity.

Pierre did not protest, however; he did not jeer, for his heart was rent
at sight of this tall, stricken old man, with his woeful senility. Is it
not indeed pitiful to see the strongest, the clearest-minded become mere
children again under such blows of fate? "Ah!" he faintly sighed, "if I
could only suffer enough to be able to silence my reason, and kneel
yonder and believe in all those fine stories."

The pale smile, which at times still passed over Doctor Chassaigne's
lips, reappeared on them. "You mean the miracles?" said he. "You are a
priest, my child, and I know what your misfortune is. The miracles seem
impossible to you. But what do you know of them? Admit that you know
nothing, and that what to our senses seems impossible is every minute
taking place. And now we have been talking together for a long time, and
eleven o'clock will soon strike, so that you must return to the Grotto.
However, I shall expect you, at half-past three, when I will take you to
the Medical Verification Offic