LITMIR.BIZ

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replied Sister Hyacinthe and the other occupants of the carriage.

      Those who had been able to do so, had knelt upon the seats, whilst the others joined their hands, or repeatedly made the sign of the cross; and when the murmured prayers were followed by the Litanies of the ritual, every voice rose, an ardent desire for the remission of the man’s sins and for his physical and spiritual cure winging its flight heavenward with each successive Kyrie eleison. Might his whole life, of which they knew nought, be forgiven him; might he enter, stranger though he was, in triumph into the Kingdom of God!

      “Christe, exaudi nos.”

      “Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix.”

      Father Massias had pulled out the silver needle from which hung a drop of Holy Oil. In the midst of such a scramble, with the whole train waiting – many people now thrusting their heads out of the carriage windows in surprise at the delay in starting – he could not think of following the usual practice, of anointing in turn all the organs of the senses, those portals of the soul which give admittance to evil.

      He must content himself, as the rules authorised him to do in pressing cases, with one anointment; and this he made upon the man’s lips, those livid parted lips from between which only a faint breath escaped, whilst the rest of his face, with its lowered eyelids, already seemed indistinct, again merged into the dust of the earth.

      “Per istam sanctam unctionem,” said the Father, “et suam piissimam misericordiam indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per visum, auditum, odoratum, gustum, tactum, deliquisti."*

      * Through this holy unction and His most tender mercy may the

      Lord pardon thee whatever sins thou hast committed by thy sight,

      hearing, etc.

      The remainder of the ceremony was lost amid the hurry and scramble of the departure. Father Massias scarcely had time to wipe off the oil with the little piece of cotton-wool which Sister Hyacinthe held in readiness, before he had to leave the compartment and get into his own as fast as possible, setting the case containing the Holy Oils in order as he did so, whilst the pilgrims finished repeating the final prayer.

      “We cannot wait any longer! It is impossible!” repeated the station-master as he bustled about. “Come, come, make haste everybody!”

      At last then they were about to resume their journey. Everybody sat down, returned to his or her corner again. Madame de Jonquiere, however, had changed her place, in order to be nearer La Grivotte, whose condition still worried her, and she was now seated in front of M. Sabathier, who remained waiting with silent resignation. Moreover, Sister Hyacinthe had not returned to her compartment, having decided to remain near the unknown man so that she might watch over him and help him. By following this course, too, she was able to minister to Brother Isidore, whose sufferings his sister Marthe was at a loss to assuage. And Marie, turning pale, felt the jolting of the train in her ailing flesh, even before it had resumed its journey under the heavy sun, rolling onward once more with its load of sufferers stifling in the pestilential atmosphere of the over-heated carriages.

      At last a loud whistle resounded, the engine puffed, and Sister Hyacinthe rose up to say: The Magnificat, my children!

      IV. MIRACLES

      JUST as the train was beginning to move, the door of the compartment in which Pierre and Marie found themselves was opened and a porter pushed a girl of fourteen inside, saying: “There’s a seat here – make haste!”

      The others were already pulling long faces and were about to protest, when Sister Hyacinthe exclaimed: “What, is it you, Sophie? So you are going back to see the Blessed Virgin who cured you last year!”

      And at the same time Madame de Jonquiere remarked: “Ah! Sophie, my little friend, I am very pleased to see that you are grateful.”

      “Why, yes, Sister; why, yes, madame,” answered the girl, in a pretty way.

      The carriage door had already been closed again, so that it was necessary that they should accept the presence of this new pilgrim who had fallen from heaven as it were at the very moment when the train, which she had almost missed, was starting off again. She was a slender damsel and would not take up much room. Moreover these ladies knew her, and all the patients had turned their eyes upon her on hearing that the Blessed Virgin had been pleased to cure her. They had now got beyond the station, the engine was still puffing, whilst the wheels increased their speed, and Sister Hyacinthe, clapping her hands, repeated: “Come, come, my children, the Magnificat.”

      Whilst the joyful chant arose amidst the jolting of the train, Pierre gazed at Sophie. She was evidently a young peasant girl, the daughter of some poor husbandman of the vicinity of Poitiers, petted by her parents, treated in fact like a young lady since she had become the subject of a miracle, one of the elect, whom the priests of the district flocked to see. She wore a straw hat with pink ribbons, and a grey woollen dress trimmed with a flounce. Her round face although not pretty was a very pleasant one, with a beautifully fresh complexion and clear, intelligent eyes which lent her a smiling, modest air.

      When the Magnificat had been sung, Pierre was unable to resist his desire to question Sophie. A child of her age, with so candid an air, so utterly unlike a liar, greatly interested him.

      “And so you nearly missed the train, my child?” he said.

      “I should have been much ashamed if I had, Monsieur l’Abbe,” she replied. “I had been at the station since twelve o’clock. And all at once I saw his reverence, the priest of Sainte-Radegonde, who knows me well and who called me to him, to kiss me and tell me that it was very good of me to go back to Lourdes. But it seems the train was starting and I only just had time to run on to the platform. Oh! I ran so fast!”

      She paused, laughing, still slightly out of breath, but already repenting that she had been so giddy.

      “And what is your name, my child?” asked Pierre.

      “Sophie Couteau, Monsieur l’Abbe.”

      “You do not belong to the town of Poitiers?”

      “Oh no! certainly not. We belong to Vivonne, which is seven kilometres away. My father and mother have a little land there, and things would not be so bad if there were not eight children at home – I am the fifth, – fortunately the four older ones are beginning to work.”

      “And you, my child, what do you do?”

      “I, Monsieur l’Abbe! Oh! I am no great help. Since last year, when I came home cured, I have not been left quiet a single day, for, as you can understand, so many people have come to see me, and then too I have been taken to Monseigneur’s,* and to the convents and all manner of other places. And before all that I was a long time ill. I could not walk without a stick, and each step I took made me cry out, so dreadfully did my foot hurt me.”

      * The Bishop’s residence.

      “So it was of some injury to the foot that the Blessed Virgin cured you?”

      Sophie did not have time to reply, for Sister Hyacinthe, who was listening, intervened: “Of caries of the bones of the left heel, which had been going on for three years,” said she. “The foot was swollen and quite deformed, and there were fistulas giving egress to continual suppuration.”

      On hearing this, all the sufferers in the carriage became intensely interested. They no longer took their eyes off this little girl on whom a miracle had been performed, but scanned her from head to foot as though seeking for some sign of the prodigy. Those who were able to stand rose up in order that they might the better see her, and the others, the infirm ones, stretched on their mattresses, strove to raise themselves and turn their heads. Amidst the suffering which had again come upon them on leaving Poitiers, the terror which filled them at the thought that they must continue rolling onward for another fifteen hours, the sudden advent of this child, favoured by Heaven, was like a divine relief, a ray of hope whence they would derive sufficient strength to accomplish the remainder of their terrible journey. The moaning had abated somewhat already, and every face was turned towards the girl with an

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