I asked for a place with the patients, but all were already distributed, so that my only resource will be to try to sleep tonight." She began to laugh, and then resumed: "Yes, Madame Volmar, we will try to sleep, won't we, since talking seems to tire you ?" Madame Volmar, who looked over thirty, was very dark, with a long face and delicate but drawn features.

Her magnificent eyes shone out like brasiers, though every now and then a cloud seemed to veil and extinguish them.

At the first glance she did not appear beautiful, but as you gazed at her she became more and more perturbing, till she conquered you and inspired you with passionate admiration.

It should be said though that she shrank from all self-assertion, comporting herself with much modesty, ever keeping in the background, striving to hide her lustre, invariably clad in black and unadorned by a single jewel, although she was the wife of a Parisian diamond-merchant.
"Oh! for my part," she murmured, "as long as I am not hustled too much I am well pleased." She had been to Lourdes as an auxiliary lady-helper already on two occasions, though but little had been seen of her there--at the hospital of Our Lady of Dolours--as, on arriving, she had been overcome by such great fatigue that she had been forced, she said, to keep her room.
However, Madame de Jonquiere, who managed the ward, treated her with good-natured tolerance.

"Ah! my poor friends," said she, "there will be plenty of time for you to exert yourselves.