"You must remain," said Bernadette immediately, as if she had been
directed to stop them.

"Ask who she is," exclaimed Madame Millet, greatly excited. "Here,
take this card and pencil, and beg of her that she will write down her
wishes."

Bernadette took them, and the ladies heard her repeat the request as
she approached the excavation and the divine radiance lighted up her
face. She paused, and for several moments remained in an apparent
state of rapture: then she returned to them, and in reply to their
inquiries said that her "Dame" had said that she saw no necessity to
write her wishes, for she knew Bernadette would obey.

"Obey what?" asked Mademoiselle Peyret. "What did she command you to
do?"

"To come to meet her at the grotto every day for fifteen days."

"Why?"

"I don't know why."

"But did she not say anything more?"

"Yes, madame."

"What?"

"She promised that if I did so I should be happy in a future world."

Madame Millet and Mademoiselle Peyret went home mystified. The story
of their futile attempt to discover deception in Bernadette got
abroad, "and still the wonder grew." The interest in the visions
intensified, and vast crowds, numbered not by tens, but by hundreds,
assembled to watch Bernadette during the appointed fifteen days. The
entire population of Lourdes appeared to be included in the crowd.
The presence of this observing multitude exerted no influence whatever
upon Bernadette, who passed among them as they made way for her
without looking to the right or to the left, as if she had too great
thoughts on her mind to give any heed to the people. Day after day
she repeated her visits, kneeling in her accustomed place and giving
herself up to a state of ecstasy.

About this time, so great had become the popular excitement over
the child, the attention of the authorities was attracted by it.
Accordingly, M. Massy, prefect of the commune, and M. Jacomet,
commissaire de police, conferred together, and decided to arrest
Bernadette as an impostor. It was on the 11th of February, 1858, when
the girl had her first vision, and about ten days thereafter, in
the presence of a great crowd, a police-officer approached her, and
laying his hand upon her shoulder took her to the commissaire for
examination.

Imagine this simple and artless child boldly confronting
the commissaire, who must have been, in her eyes, a person of high
dignity! M. Jacomet plied her with questions and cross-questio