you are both very sensible. And now good-night, and
don't be at all uneasy about me."

He gave his daughter a long, loving kiss, pressed the young priest's
hands, and then went off, disappearing among the serried ranks of the
procession, which he once more had to cross.

Then they remained alone in their dark, solitary nook under the spreading
trees, she still sitting up in her box, and he kneeling on the grass,
with his elbow resting on one of the wheels. And it was truly sweet to
linger there while the tapers continued marching past, and, after a
turning movement, assembled on the Place du Rosaire. What delighted
Pierre was that nothing of all the daytime junketing remained. It seemed
as though a purifying breeze had come down from the mountains, sweeping
away all the odour of strong meats, the greedy Sunday delights, the
scorching, pestilential, fair-field dust which, at an earlier hour, had
hovered above the town. Overhead there was now only the vast sky, studded
with pure stars, and the freshness of the Gave was delicious, whilst the
wandering breezes were laden with the perfumes of wild flowers. The
mysterious Infinite spread far around in the sovereign peacefulness of
night, and nothing of materiality remained save those little
candle-flames which the young priest's companion had compared to
suffering souls seeking deliverance. All was now exquisitely restful,
instinct with unlimited hope. Since Pierre had been there all the
heart-rending memories of the afternoon, of the voracious appetites, the
impudent simony, and the poisoning of the old town, had gradually left
him, allowing him to savour the divine refreshment of that beautiful
night, in which his whole being was steeped as in some revivifying water.

A feeling of infinite sweetness had likewise come over Marie, who
murmured: "Ah! how happy Blanche would be to see all these marvels."

She was thinking of her sister, who had been left in Paris to all the
worries of her hard profession as a teacher forced to run hither and
thither giving lessons. And that simple mention of her sister, of whom
Marie had not spoken since her arrival at Lourdes, but whose figure now
unexpectedly arose in her mind's eye, sufficed to evoke a vision of all
the past.

Then, without exchanging a word, Marie and Pierre lived their childhood's
days afresh, playing together once more in the neighbouring gardens
parted by the quickset hedge. But separation came on the day when he
e