h, harboured nothing in her
heart save that distant awakening of passion, the unconscious love of her
thirteenth year.

Her hand sought Pierre's in the darkness, and when she found it, coming
to meet her own, she, for a long time, continued pressing it. Ah! how
sweet it was! Never before, indeed, had they tasted such pure and perfect
joy in being together, far from the world, amidst the sovereign
enchantment of darkness and mystery. Around them nothing subsisted, save
the revolving stars. The lulling hymns were like the very vertigo that
bore them away. And she knew right well that after spending a night of
rapture at the Grotto, she would, on the morrow, be cured. Of this she
was, indeed, absolutely convinced; she would prevail upon the Blessed
Virgin to listen to her; she would soften her, as soon as she should be
alone, imploring her face to face. And she well understood what Pierre
had wished to say a short time previously, when expressing his desire to
spend the whole night outside the Grotto, like herself. Was it not that
he intended to make a supreme effort to believe, that he meant to fall
upon his knees like a little child, and beg the all-powerful Mother to
restore his lost faith? Without need of any further exchange of words,
their clasped hands repeated all those things. They mutually promised
that they would pray for each other, and so absorbed in each other did
they become that they forgot themselves, with such an ardent desire for
one another's cure and happiness, that for a moment they attained to the
depths of the love which offers itself in sacrifice. It was divine
enjoyment.

"Ah!" murmured Pierre, "how beautiful is this blue night, this infinite
darkness, which has swept away all the hideousness of things and beings,
this deep, fresh peacefulness, in which I myself should like to bury my
doubts!"

His voice died away, and Marie, in her turn, said in a very low voice:
"And the roses, the perfume of the roses? Can't you smell them, my
friend? Where can they be since you could not see them?"

"Yes, yes, I smell them, but there are none," he replied. "I should
certainly have seen them, for I hunted everywhere."

"How can you say that there are no roses when they perfume the air around
us, when we are steeped in their aroma? Why, there are moments when the
scent is so powerful that I almost faint with delight in inhaling it!
They must certainly be here, innumerable, under our very feet."

"No, no,"