st three by the clock of the Lourdes railway
station, the dial of which was illumined by a reflector. Under the
slanting roof sheltering the platform, a hundred yards or so in length,
some shadowy forms went to and fro, resignedly waiting. Only a red signal
light peeped out of the black countryside, far away.

Two of the promenaders suddenly halted. The taller of them, a Father of
the Assumption, none other indeed than the Reverend Father Fourcade,
director of the national pilgrimage, who had reached Lourdes on the
previous day, was a man of sixty, looking superb in his black cloak with
its large hood. His fine head, with its clear, domineering eyes and thick
grizzly beard, was the head of a general whom an intelligent
determination to conquer inflames. In consequence, however, of a sudden
attack of gout he slightly dragged one of his legs, and was leaning on
the shoulder of his companion, Dr. Bonamy, the practitioner attached to
the Miracle Verification Office, a short, thick-set man, with a
square-shaped, clean-shaven face, which had dull, blurred eyes and a
tranquil cast of features.

Father Fourcade had stopped to question the station-master whom he
perceived running out of his office. "Will the white train be very late,
monsieur?" he asked.

"No, your reverence. It hasn't lost more than ten minutes; it will be
here at the half-hour. It's the Bayonne train which worries me; it ought
to have passed through already."

So saying, he ran off to give an order; but soon came back again, his
slim, nervous figure displaying marked signs of agitation. He lived,
indeed, in a state of high fever throughout the period of the great
pilgrimages. Apart from the usual service, he that day expected eighteen
trains, containing more than fifteen thousand passengers. The grey and
the blue trains which had started from Paris the first had already
arrived at the regulation hour. But the delay in the arrival of the white
train was very troublesome, the more so as the Bayonne express--which
passed over the same rails--had not yet been signalled. It was easy to
understand, therefore, what incessant watchfulness was necessary, not a
second passing without the entire staff of the station being called upon
to exercise its vigilance.

"In ten minutes, then?" repeated Father Fourcade.

"Yes, in ten minutes, unless I'm obliged to close the line!" cried the
station-master as he hastened into the telegraph office.

Father Fourcade and the d