ould not live
long unless we could find you."

"Oh, if I had only known! If I had dreamed that he would care so--so
much," I sobbed. "How--how did you find me?"

Seraphine answered with that far-away, mystic look in her eyes: "It was
your mother, dear--she told me we must go to Lourdes, she said it quite
distinctly, she said we must sail that very week, or it would be too
late--and we did sail."

I stared at her with widening, frightened eyes.

"Seraphine! You don't mean that--that Christopher is--here?" I cried.

The clairvoyant bowed her head slowly.

"He is here, at the hotel, but he is very ill. He took cold on the ship
and--it got worse. He has pneumonia."

"Oh!" I breathed. I could feel my lips go white.

"The doctor is with him now, and a trained nurse. I left them to search
for you. I knew I should find you--somewhere."

I rose quickly and caught my companion's arm.

"Come! We must go to him."

"No! You cannot see him until tomorrow. This is the night of the
crisis."

"Please!" I begged.

"No! You must wait here. I will send you word." Then she left me.

Hour after hour I waited at the hospice, knowing that Seraphine would
keep her promise and send me some message. At about nine o'clock a
little boy came with a note saying that I must come at once.
Christopher was worse.

As we hurried through the square, the whole place was ablaze with
lights, the church itself outlined fantastically in electric fires,
while great crowds of chanting pilgrims moved in slow procession, each
man or woman carrying a torch or lantern or shaded candle and all
lifting their voices in that everlasting cry of faith and worship:

_Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria!
Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria!_

Until the day of my death I shall hear that thunderous chorus sounding
in my ears whenever memory turns back my thoughts to this fateful night.

Seraphine met me at the door of the chamber where Christopher lay,
feverish and delirious. A French doctor, with pointed beard, watched by
the patient gravely, while a sad-eyed nurse held his poor feet huddled
in her arms in an effort to give them warmth. Already the life forces
were departing from my beloved.

The doctor motioned me silently to a chair, but I came forward and sat
on the bed, and bending over my dear one, I called to him fondly:

"Chris! It's Penelope! Oh, my dear, my dear! Don't you know me?" I
pleaded.

But there was no answer, no recognition.

An hour passed, two hou