se demands, I saw again and again sixty
or seventy men, dead silent, staring, listening with all their ears,
while some poor uneducated man or woman, smiling radiantly, gave a
little history or answered the abrupt kindly questions of the presiding
doctor.

Again, and again, too, it seemed to me that all this had been enacted
before. There was once upon a time a man born blind who received his
sight, and round him there gathered keen-eyed doctors of another kind.
They tried to pose him with questions. It was unheard of, they cried,
that a man born blind should receive his sight; at least it could not
have been as he said. Yet there stood the man in the midst, seeing them
as they saw him, and giving his witness. "This," he said, "was the way
it was done. Such and such is the name of the Man who cured me. And look
for yourselves! I was blind; now I see."

After I had looked and made notes and asked questions of Dr. Cox, Dr.
Boissarie came in. I was made known to him; and presently he took me
aside, with a Scottish priest (who all through my stay showed me great
kindness), and began to ask me questions. It seemed that, since there
was no physical _miracule_ present just now, a spiritual _miracule_
would do as well; for he asked me a hundred questions as to my
conversion and its causes, and what part prayer played in it; and the
doctors crowded round and listened to my halting French.

"It was the need of a divine Leader--an authority--then, that brought
you in?"

"Yes, it was that; it was the position of St. Peter in the Scriptures
and in history; it was the supernatural unity of the Church. It is
impossible to say exactly which argument predominated."

"It was, in fact, the grace of God," smiled the Doctor.

Dr. Boissarie, as also Dr. Cox, was extremely good to me. He is an
oldish man, with a keen, clever, wrinkled face; he is of middle-size,
and walks very slowly and deliberately; he is a fervent Catholic. He is
very sharp and businesslike, but there is an air of wonderful goodness
and kindness about him; he takes one by the arm in a very pleasant
manner; I have seen dilatory, rambling patients called to their senses
in an instant, yet never frightened.

Dr. Cox, who has been at Lourdes for fourteen years, is a typical
Englishman, ruddy, with a white moustache. His part is mostly
secretarial, it seems; though he too asks questions now and again. It
was he who gave me the "doctor's cross," and who later obtained fo