And leaning towards him, she added in an undertone: "I beheld the Blessed Virgin a little while ago, Pierre, and it was your cure that I implored and shall obtain." The priest, who understood her meaning, was thrown into confusion by the divine light which gleamed in her eyes as she fixed them on his own.

She had forgotten her own sufferings; that which she had asked for was his conversion; and that prayer of faith, emanating, pure and candid, from that dear, suffering creature, upset his soul.

Yet why should he not believe some day?
He himself had been distracted by all those extraordinary narratives.

The stifling heat of the carriage had made him dizzy, the sight of all the woe heaped up there caused his heart to bleed with pity.

And contagion was doing its work; he no longer knew where the real and the possible ceased, he lacked the power to disentangle such a mass of stupefying facts, to explain such as admitted of explanation and reject the others.