He was introduced to me at the railway station.

He is suffering from tuberculosis, it appears, and seemed to me very low, very low." A fresh interval of silence ensued.

"Well," said M.Sabathier at last, "may the Blessed Virgin save him also, she who can do everything.

I shall be so happy; she will have loaded me with favours." Then the three men, isolating themselves from the others, went on conversing together, at first on medical subjects, and at last diverging into a discussion on romanesque architecture, _a propos_ of a steeple which they had perceived on a hillside, and which every pilgrim had saluted with a sign of the cross.

Swayed once more by the habits of cultivated intellect, the young priest and his two companions forgot themselves together in the midst of their fellow-passengers, all those poor, suffering, simple-minded folk, whom wretchedness stupefied.