oots; and indeed it
was only the touts, the young and old women who had rooms to let, who
laughed at the puddles, which they crossed and crossed again in every
direction, pursuing the last pilgrims that emerged from the station.

When the little car had begun to roll more easily over the sloping road
Marie suddenly inquired of M. de Guersaint, who was walking near her:
"What day of the week is it, father?"

"Saturday, my darling."

"Ah! yes, Saturday, the day of the Blessed Virgin. Is it to-day that she
will cure me?"

Then she began thinking again; while, at some distance behind her, two
bearers came furtively down the road, with a covered stretcher in which
lay the corpse of the man who had died in the train. They had gone to
take it from behind the barrels in the goods office, and were now
conveying it to a secret spot of which Father Fourcade had told them.

II. HOSPITAL AND GROTTO

BUILT, so far as it extends, by a charitable Canon, and left unfinished
through lack of money, the Hospital of Our Lady of Dolours is a vast
pile, four storeys high, and consequently far too lofty, since it is
difficult to carry the sufferers to the topmost wards. As a rule the
building is occupied by a hundred infirm and aged paupers; but at the
season of the national pilgrimage these old folks are for three days
sheltered elsewhere, and the hospital is let to the Fathers of the
Assumption, who at times lodge in it as many as five and six hundred
patients. Still, however closely packed they may be, the accommodation
never suffices, so that the three or four hundred remaining sufferers
have to be distributed between the Hospital of Salvation and the town
hospital, the men being sent to the former and the women to the latter
institution.

That morning at sunrise great confusion prevailed in the sand-covered
courtyard of Our Lady of Dolours, at the door of which a couple of
priests were mounting guard. The temporary staff, with its formidable
supply of registers, cards, and printed formulas, had installed itself in
one of the ground-floor rooms on the previous day. The managers were
desirous of greatly improving upon the organisation of the preceding
year. The lower wards were this time to be reserved to the most helpless
sufferers; and in order to prevent a repetition of the cases of mistaken
identity which had occurred in the past, very great care was to be taken
in filling in and distributing the admission cards, each of w