ting attendants, a figure
with shrouding linen fallen from breast and outstretched arms,
and then a roar, mighty beyond reckoning, as the whole
amphitheatre swayed and cried out in exultation. He saw as in a
vision the rush of doctors to the place, and the gesticulating
figures that held back the crowd behind the barrier. Then a great
moan of relief; and a profound silence as the _miracule_ kneeled
again beside the litter which had borne him. Then again the
canopy moved on; and the passionate voice cried, followed in an
instant by the roar of response:

"_Hosanna to the son of David._"

* * * * * * *

It was half-way round, at the foot of the church steps, that the
German girl was laid; and as the prelates drew near Monsignor
looked rapidly to this side and that to identify her.

Ah! there she lay, still with closed patient eyes and colourless
face, in the outer circle facing inwards towards the pulpit. A
doctor knelt on either side of her--one of them the young man who
had announced her coming into the hall this morning, with a
rosary between his fingers. It was known to the crowd generally,
Monsignor had learnt, that her case was exceptional; but it had
been kept from them as to where she would lie, for fear that the
excitement might be too much concentrated.

He looked at her again, intently and carefully--at that waxen,
fallen face, her helpless hands clasped across her breast with a
string of beads interwoven within them; and even as he looked
distrust once more surged within him, It was impossible, he told
himself--in spite of what he had seen that day in spite of that
score of leaping figures and the infectious roar that more than
twenty times in that short journey had set his pulses
a-beat. . . . He passed her, quickening his steps a little; then
faced about and watched.

Slowly came the canopy. Its four bearers sweated visibly with
the effort; and the face of the bishop who bore the monstrance
was pale and streaked with moisture from the countless movements
he had made. Behind him came row after row of downcast faces,
men and women of every Religious Order on earth, and the tapers
seen in perspective appeared as four almost continuous waving
lines of soft light.

There had been a longer pause than usual since the last exulting
cry of a sick man healed; and the silence between the cries from
the pulpit grew continually more acute. And yet nothing happened.

The bishop was signing now outwards over