ing to be bathed, whilst outside the rope, a
huge, excited throng was ever pressing and surging. A Capuchin, erect in
the centre of the reserved space, was at that moment conducting the
prayers. "Aves" followed one after the other, repeated by the crowd in a
loud confused murmur. Then, all at once, as Madame Vincent, who, pale
with agony, had long been waiting, was admitted to the baths, carrying
her dear burden, her little girl who looked like a waxen image of the
child Christ, the Capuchin let himself fall upon his knees with his arms
extended, and cried aloud: "Lord, heal our sick!" He raised this cry a
dozen, twenty times, with a growing fury, and each time the crowd
repeated it, growing more and more excited at each shout, till it sobbed
and kissed the ground in a state of frenzy. It was like a hurricane of
delirium rushing by and laying every head in the dust. Pierre was utterly
distracted by the sob of suffering which arose from the very bowels of
these poor folks--at first a prayer, growing louder and louder, then
bursting forth like a demand in impatient, angry, deafening, obstinate
accents, as though to compel the help of Heaven. "Lord, heal our
sick!"--"Lord, heal our sick!" The shout soared on high incessantly.

An incident occurred, however; La Grivotte was weeping hot tears because
they would not bathe her. "They say that I'm a consumptive," she
plaintively exclaimed, "and that they can't dip consumptives in cold
water. Yet they dipped one this morning; I saw her. So why won't they dip
me? I've been wearing myself out for the last half-hour in telling them
that they are only grieving the Blessed Virgin, for I am going to be
cured, I feel it, I am going to be cured!"

As she was beginning to cause a scandal, one of the chaplains of the
piscinas approached and endeavoured to calm her. They would see what they
could do for her, by-and-by, said he; they would consult the reverend
Fathers, and, if she were very good, perhaps they would bathe her all the
same.

Meantime the cry continued: "Lord, heal our sick! Lord, heal our sick!"
And Pierre, who had just perceived Madame Vetu, also waiting at the
piscina entry, could no longer turn his eyes away from her hope-tortured
face, whose eyes were fixed upon the doorway by which the happy ones, the
elect, emerged from the divine presence, cured of all their ailments.
However, a sudden increase of the crowd's frenzy, a perfect rage of
entreaties, gave him such a shoc