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.