ught it swamped, for no sign
of it could be detected. Then, however, it reappeared near the piscinas.
Tender sympathy had at length been awakened for this sick girl, so wasted
by suffering, but still so beautiful. When people had been compelled to
give way before the priest's stubborn pushing, they turned round, but did
not dare to get angry, for pity penetrated them at sight of that thin,
suffering face, shining out amidst a halo of fair hair. Words of
compassion and admiration were heard on all sides: "Ah, the poor
child!"--"Was it not cruel to be infirm at her age?"--"Might the Blessed
Virgin be merciful to her!" Others, however, expressed surprise, struck
as they were by the ecstasy in which they saw her, with her clear eyes
open to the spheres beyond, where she had placed her hope. She beheld
Heaven, she would assuredly be cured. And thus the little car left, as it
were, a feeling of wonder and fraternal charity behind it, as it made its
way with so much difficulty through that human ocean.

Pierre, however, was in despair and at the end of his strength, when some
of the stretcher-bearers came to his aid by forming a path for the
passage of the procession--a path which Berthaud had ordered them to keep
clear by means of cords, which they were to hold at intervals of a couple
of yards. From that moment the young priest was able to drag Marie along
in a fairly easy manner, and at last place her within the reserved space,
where he halted, facing the Grotto on the left side. You could no longer
move in this reserved space, where the crowd seemed to increase every
minute. And, quite exhausted by the painful journey he had just
accomplished, Pierre reflected what a prodigious concourse of people
there was; it had seemed to him as if he were in the midst of an ocean,
whose waves he had heard heaving around him without a pause.

Since leaving the hospital Marie had not opened her lips. He now
realised, however, that she wished to speak to him, and accordingly bent
over her. "And my father," she inquired, "is he here? Hasn't he returned
from his excursion?"

Pierre had to answer that M. de Guersaint had not returned, and that he
had doubtless been delayed against his will. And thereupon she merely
added with a smile: "Ah I poor father, won't he be pleased when he finds
me cured!"

Pierre looked at her with tender admiration. He did not remember having
ever seen her looking so adorable since the slow wasting of sickness h