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seemed to become quite bewildered, rushing madly hither and thither with

their litters and vehicles, not knowing at what end to set about the

profusion of work which lay before them.

As Berthaud, followed by Gerard, went along the platform, gesticulating,

he noticed two ladies and a girl who were standing under a gas jet and to

all appearance waiting. In the girl he recognised Raymonde, and with a

sign of the hand he at once stopped his companion. "Ah! mademoiselle,"

said he, "how pleased I am to see you! Is Madame de Jonquiere quite well?

You have made a good journey, I hope?" Then, without a pause, he added:

"This is my friend, Monsieur Gerard de Peyrelongue."

Raymonde gazed fixedly at the young man with her clear, smiling eyes.

"Oh! I already have the pleasure of being slightly acquainted with this

gentleman," she said. "We have previously met one another at Lourdes."

Thereupon Gerard, who thought that his cousin Berthaud was conducting

matters too quickly, and was quite resolved that he would not enter into

any hasty engagement, contented himself with bowing in a ceremonious way.

"We are waiting for mamma," resumed Raymonde. "She is extremely busy; she

has to see after some pilgrims who are very ill."

At this, little Madame Desagneaux, with her pretty, light wavy-haired

head, began to say that it served Madame de Jonquiere right for refusing

her services. She herself was stamping with impatience, eager to join in

the work and make herself useful, whilst Madame Volmar, silent, shrinking

back as though taking no interest in it at all, seemed simply desirous of

penetrating the darkness, as though, indeed, she were seeking somebody

with those magnificent eyes of hers, usually bedimmed, but now shining

out like brasiers.

Just then, however, they were all pushed back. Madame Dieulafay was being

removed from her first-class compartment, and Madame Desagneaux could not

restrain an exclamation of pity. "Ah! the poor woman!"

There could in fact be no more distressing sight than this young woman,

encompassed by luxury, covered with lace in her species of coffin, so

wasted that she seemed to be a mere human shred, deposited on that

platform till it could be taken away. Her husband and her sister, both

very elegant and very sad, remained standing near her, whilst a

man-servant and maid ran off with the valises to ascertain if the

carriage which had been ordered by telegram was in the courtyard. Abbe

Judaine also helped the sufferer; and when two men at last took her up he

bent over her and wished her _au revoir_, adding some kind words which

she did not seem to hear. Then as he watched her removal, he resumed,

addressing himself to Berthaud, whom he knew: "Ah! the poor people, if

they could only purchase their dear sufferer's cure. I told them that

prayer was the most precious thing in the Blessed Virgin's eyes, and I

hope that I have myself prayed fervently enough to obtain the compassion

of Heaven. Nevertheless, they have brought a magnificent gift, a golden

lantern for the Basilica, a perfect marvel, adorned with precious stones.

May the Immaculate Virgin deign to smile upon it!"

In this way a great many offerings were brought by the pilgrims. Some

huge bouquets of flowers had just gone by, together with a kind of triple

crown of roses, mounted on a wooden stand. And the old priest explained

that before leaving the station he wished to secure a banner, the gift of

the beautiful Madame Jousseur, Madame Dieulafay's sister.

Madame de Jonquiere was at last approaching, however, and on perceiving

Berthaud and Gerard she exclaimed: "Pray do go to that carriage,

gentlemen--that one, there! We want some men very badly. There are three

or four sick persons to be taken out. I am in despair; I can do nothing

myself."

Gerard ran off after bowing to Raymonde, whilst Berthaud advised Madame

de Jonquiere to leave the station with her daughter and those ladies

instead of remaining on the platform. Her presence was in nowise

necessary, he said; he would undertake everything, and within three

quarters of an hour she would find her patients in her ward at the

hospital. She ended by giving way, and took a conveyance in company with

Raymonde and Madame Desagneaux. As for Madame Volmar, she had at the last

moment disappeared, as though seized with a sudden fit of impatience. The

others fancied that they had seen her approach a strange gentleman, with

the object no doubt of making some inquiry of him. However, they would of

course find her at the hospital.

Berthaud joined Gerard again just as the young man, assisted by two

fellow-bearers, was endeavouring to remove M. Sabathier from the

carriage. It was a difficult task, for he was very stout and very heavy,

and they began to think that he would never pass through the doorway of

the compartment. However, as he had been got in they ought to be able to

get him out; and indeed when two other bearers had entered the carriage

from the other side, they were at last able to deposit him on the

platform.

The dawn was now appearing, a faint pale dawn; and the platform presented

the woeful appearance of an improvised hospital. La Grivotte, who had

lost consciousness, lay there on a mattress pending her removal in a

litter; whilst Madame Vetu had been seated against a lamp-post, suffering

so severely from another attack of her ailment that they scarcely dared

to touch her. Some hospitallers, whose hands were gloved, were with

difficulty wheeling their little vehicles in which were poor,

sordid-looking women with old baskets at their feet. Others, with

stretchers on which lay the stiffened, woeful bodies of silent sufferers,

whose eyes gleamed with anguish, found themselves unable to pass; but

some of the infirm pilgrims, some unfortunate cripples, contrived to slip

through the ranks, among them a young priest who was lame, and a little

humpbacked boy, one of whose legs had been amputated, and who, looking

like a gnome, managed to drag himself with his crutches from group to

group. Then there was quite a block around a man who was bent in half,

twisted by paralysis to such a point that he had to be carried on a chair

with his head and feet hanging downward. It seemed as though hours would

be required to clear the platform.

The dismay therefore reached a climax when the station-master suddenly

rushed up shouting: "The Bayonne express is signalled. Make haste! make

haste! You have only three minutes left!"

Father Fourcade, who had remained in the midst of the throng, leaning on

Doctor Bonamy's arm, and gaily encouraging the more stricken of the

sufferers, beckoned to Berthaud and said to him: "Finish taking them out

of the train; you will be able to clear the platform afterwards!"

The advice was very sensible, and in accordance with it they finished

placing the sufferers on the platform. In Madame de Jonquiere's carriage

Marie now alone remained, waiting patiently. M. de Guersaint and Pierre

had at last returned to her, bringing the two pairs of wheels by means of

which the box in which she lay was rolled about. And with Gerard's

assistance Pierre in all haste removed the girl from the train. She was

as light as a poor shivering bird, and it was only the box that gave them

any trouble. However, they soon placed it on the wheels and made the

latter fast, and then Pierre might have rolled Marie away had it not been

for the crowd which hampered him.

"Make haste! make haste!" furiously repeated the station-master.

He himself lent a hand, taking hold of a sick man by the feet in order to

remove him from the compartment more speedily. And he also pushed the

little hand-carts back, so as to clear the edge of the platform. In a

second-class carriage, however, there still remained one woman who had

just been overpowered by a terrible nervous attack. She was howling and

struggling, and it was impossible to think of touching her at that

moment. But on the other hand the express, signalled by the incessant

tinkling of the electric bells, was now fast approaching, and they had to

close the door and in all haste shunt the train to the siding where it

would remain for three days, until in fact it was required to convey its

load of sick and healthy passengers back to Paris. As it went off to the

siding the crowd still heard the cries of the suffering woman, whom it

had been necessary to leave in it, in charge of a Sister, cries which

grew weaker and weaker, like those of a strengthless child whom one at

last succeeds in consoling.

"Good Lord!" muttered the station-master; "it was high time!"

In fact the Bayonne express was now coming along at full speed, and the

next moment it rushed like a crash of thunder past that woeful platform

littered with all the grievous wretchedness of a hospital hastily

evacuated. The litters and little handcarts were shaken, but there was no

accident, for the porters were on the watch, and pushed back the

bewildered flock which was still jostling and struggling in its eagerness

to get away. As soon as the express had passed, however, circulation was

re-established, and the bearers were at last able to complete the removal

of the sick with prudent deliberation.

Little by little the daylight was increasing--a clear dawn it was,

whitening the heavens whose reflection illumined the earth, which was

still black. One began to distinguish things and people clearly.

"Oh, by-and-by!" Marie repeated to Pierre, as he endeavoured to roll her

away. "Let us wait till some part of the crowd has gone."

Then, looking around, she began to feel interested in a man of military

bearing, apparently some sixty years of age, who was walking about among

the sick pilgrims. With a square-shaped head and white bushy hair, he

would still have looked sturdy if he had not dragged his left foot,

throwing it inward at each step he took. With the left hand, too, he

leant heavily on a thick walking-stick. When M. Sabathier, who had

visited Lourdes for six years past, perceived him, he became quite gay.

"Ah!" said he, "it is you, Commander!"

Commander was perhaps the old man's name. But as he was decorated with a

broad red riband, he was possibly called Commander on account of his

decoration, albeit the latter was that of a mere chevalier. Nobody

exactly knew his story. No doubt he had relatives and children of his own

somewhere, but these matters remained vague and mysterious. For the last

three years he had been employed at the railway station as a

superintendent in the goods department, a simple occupation, a little

berth which had been given him by favour and which enabled him to live in

perfect happiness. A first stroke of apoplexy at fifty-five years of age

had been followed by a second one three years later, which had left him

slightly paralysed in the left side. And now he was awaiting the third

stroke with an air of perfect tranquillity. As he himself put it, he was

at the disposal of death, which might come for him that night, the next

day, or possibly that very moment. All Lourdes knew him on account of the

habit, the mania he had, at pilgrimage time, of coming to witness the

arrival of the trains, dragging his foot along and leaning upon his

stick, whilst expressing his astonishment and reproaching the ailing ones

for their intense desire to be made whole and sound again.

This was the third year that he had seen M. Sabathier arrive, and all his

anger fell upon him. "What! you have come back _again_!" he exclaimed.

"Well, you _must_ be desirous of living this hateful life! But

_sacrebleu_! go and die quietly in your bed at home. Isn't that the best

thing that can happen to anyone?"

M. Sabathier evinced no anger, but laughed, exhausted though he was by

the handling to which he had been subjected during his removal from the

carriage. "No, no," said he, "I prefer to be cured."

"To be cured, to be cured! That's what they all ask for. They travel

hundreds of leagues and arrive in fragments, howling with pain, and all

this to be cured--to go through every worry and every suffering again.

Come, monsieur, you would be nicely caught if, at your age and with your

dilapidated old body, your Blessed Virgin should be pleased to restore

the use of your legs to you. What would you do with them, _mon Dieu?_

What pleasure would you find in prolonging the abomination of old age for

a few years more? It's much better to die at once, while you are like

that! Death is happiness!"

He spoke in this fashion, not as a believer who aspires to the delicious

reward of eternal life, but as a weary man who expects to fall into

nihility, to enjoy the great everlasting peace of being no more.

Whilst M. Sabathier was gaily shrugging his shoulders as though he had a

child to deal with, Abbe Judaine, who had at last secured his banner,

came by and stopped for a moment in order that he might gently scold the

Commander, with whom he also was well acquainted.

"Don't blaspheme, my dear friend," he said. "It is an offence against God

to refuse life and to treat health with contempt. If you yourself had

listened to me, you would have asked the Blessed Virgin to cure your leg

before now."

At this the Commander became angry. "My leg! The Virgin can do nothing to

it! I'm quite at my ease. May death come and may it all be over forever!

When the time comes to die you turn your face to the wall and you

die--it's simple enough."

The old priest interrupted him, however. Pointing to Marie, who was lying

on her box listening to them, he exclaimed: "You tell all our sick to go

home and die--even mademoiselle, eh? She who is full of youth and wishes

to live."

Marie's eyes were wide open, burning with the ardent desire which she

felt to _be_, to enjoy her share of the vast world; and the Commander,

who had drawn near, gazed upon her, suddenly seized with deep emotion