, under the guidance of Dom
Adrian Bennett, had spent a couple of hours this afternoon in
examining the most striking of the records and photographs
preserved there. He was amazed to find that even by the end of
the nineteenth century cures had taken place for which the most
modern scientists could find no natural explanation.

Ten minutes ago he had taken his place in the procession of the
Blessed Sacrament, with the monk's last word still in his head.

"It is during the procession itself," he had said, "that the work
is done. We lay aside all deliberate knowledge as the Angelus
rings, and give ourselves up to faith."

* * * * *

And now the procession had started, and already, it seemed to
him, he had begun to understand. It was as he himself emerged, a
few paces in front of the Blessed Sacrament Itself, walking with
the prelates, that that understanding reached its climax. He
paused at the head of the steps, to wait for the canopy to come
through, and his heart rose within him so mightily that it was
all he could do not to cry out.

Beneath him, seen now from the opposite end from which he had
looked this morning, lay the Place, under a wholly different
appearance. The centre of the great oval was cleared, with the
exception of a huge pulpit, surmounted by a circular
sounding-board, that stood in the middle. But round this empty
space rose, in tier after tier, masses of humanity beyond all
reckoning, up and up, as on the sides of an enormous
amphitheatre, as far as the highest roofs of the highest
buildings that looked on to the space. Before him rose the pile
of churches, and here too, on every platform roof and stair,
swarmed the spectators. The doors of the three churches were
flung wide, and far within, in the lighted interiors, lay the
heads of countless crowds, as cobble-stones, seen in perspective.
The whole Place was in shadow now, as the sun had just gone down,
but the sky was still alight overhead, a vast tender-coloured
vault, as sweet as a benediction. Here and there, in the
illimitable blue, like crumbs of diamond dust, gleamed the first
stars of evening.

And from this vast multitude, swayed by a white figure within the
pulpit, articulate now as the listener emerged, rose up a song to
Mary, as from one soft and gigantic voice, appealing to Her
Presence who for over a century and a half, it seemed, had chosen
to dwell here by virtue and influence, the Great Mother of the
redeemed an