happy, Marie," he said, "for I am very happy myself, and
all our sufferings are redeemed."

But even while he spoke he felt a deep rending within him, as though a
brutal hatchet-stroke were parting them forever. Amidst their common
sufferings, she had hitherto remained the little friend of childhood's
days, the first artlessly loved woman, whom he knew to be still his own,
since she could belong to none. But now she was cured, and he remained
alone in his hell, repeating to himself that she would never more be his!
This sudden thought so upset him that he averted his eyes, in despair at
reaping such suffering from the prodigious felicity with which she
exulted.

However the chant went on, and Father Massias, hearing nothing and seeing
nothing, absorbed as he was in his glowing gratitude to God, shouted the
final verse in a thundering voice: "_Sicut locutus est ad patres nostros,
Abraham, et semini ejus in saecula_." "As He spake to our fathers, to
Abraham, and to his seed for ever!"

Yet another incline had to be climbed, yet another effort had to be made
up that rough acclivity, with its large slippery flagstones. And the
procession rose yet higher, and the ascent still went on in the full,
bright light. There came a last turn, and the wheels of Marie's car
grated against a granite curb. Then, still higher, still and ever higher,
did it roll until it finally reached what seemed to be the very fringe of
heaven.

And all at once the canopy appeared on the summit of the gigantic
inclined ways, on the stone balcony overlooking the stretch of country
outside the portal of the Basilica. Abbe Judaine stepped forward holding
the Blessed Sacrament aloft with both hands. Marie, who had pulled her
car up the balcony steps, was near him, her heart beating from her
exertion, her face all aglow amidst the gold of her loosened hair. Then
all the clergy, the snowy surplices, and the dazzling chasubles ranged
themselves behind, whilst the banners waved like bunting decking the
white balustrades. And a solemn minute followed.

From on high there could have been no grander spectacle. First,
immediately below, there was the multitude, the human sea with its dark
waves, its heaving billows, now for a moment stilled, amidst which you
only distinguished the small pale specks of the faces uplifted towards
the Basilica, in expectation of the Benediction; and as far as the eye
could reach, from the place du Rosaire to the Gave, along the p