e, where I hope I shall be able to show you
some surprising things. Don't forget, at half-past three."

Thereupon he sent him off, and remained on the bench alone. The heat had
yet increased, and the distant hills were burning in the furnace-like
glow of the sun. However, he lingered there forgetfully, dreaming in the
greeny half-light amidst the foliage, and listening to the continuous
murmur of the Gave, as if a voice, a dear voice from the realms beyond,
were speaking to him.

Pierre meantime hastened back to Marie. He was able to join her without
much difficulty, for the crowd was thinning, a good many people having
already gone off to _dejeuner_. And on arriving he perceived the girl's
father, who was quietly seated beside her, and who at once wished to
explain to him the reason of his long absence. For more than a couple of
hours that morning he had scoured Lourdes in all directions, applying at
twenty hotels in turn without being able to find the smallest closet
where they might sleep. Even the servants' rooms were let and you could
not have even secured a mattress on which to stretch yourself in some
passage. However, all at once, just as he was despairing, he had
discovered two rooms, small ones, it is true, and just under the roof,
but in a very good hotel, that of the Apparitions, one of the best
patronised in the town. The persons who had retained these rooms had just
telegraphed that the patient whom they had meant to bring with them was
dead. Briefly, it was a piece of rare good luck, and seemed to make M. de
Guersaint quite gay.

Eleven o'clock was now striking and the woeful procession of sufferers
started off again through the sunlit streets and squares. When it reached
the hospital Marie begged her father and Pierre to go to the hotel, lunch
and rest there awhile, and return to fetch her at two o'clock, when the
patients would again be conducted to the Grotto. But when, after
lunching, the two men went up to the rooms which they were to occupy at
the Hotel of the Apparitions, M. de Guersaint, overcome by fatigue, fell
so soundly asleep that Pierre had not the heart to awaken him. What would
have been the use of it? His presence was not indispensable. And so the
young priest returned to the hospital alone. Then the _cortege_ again
descended the Avenue de la Grotte, again wended its way over the Plateau
de la Merlasse, again crossed the Place du Rosaire, past an ever-growing
crowd which shuddered and c