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 al