Then all at once he gave a start of astonishment and exclaimed: "What! doctor, so you now believe that miracles are possible?
You, good heavens! whom I knew as an unbeliever, or at least as one altogether indifferent to these matters ?" He was gazing at M.Chassaigne quite stupefied by something which he had just heard him say of the Grotto and Bernadette.

It was amazing, coming from a man with so strong a mind, a _savant_ of such intelligence, whose powerful analytical faculties he had formerly so much admired! How was it that a lofty, clear mind, nourished by experience and method, had become so changed as to acknowledge the miraculous cures effected by that divine fountain which the Blessed Virgin had caused to spurt forth under the pressure of a child's fingers?
"But just think a little, my dear doctor," he resumed.

"It was you yourself who supplied my father with memoranda about Bernadette, your little fellow-villager as you used to call her; and it was you, too, who spoke to me at such length about her, when, later on, I took a momentary interest in her story.

In your eyes she was simply an ailing child, prone to hallucinations, infantile, but self-conscious of her acts, deficient of will-power.

Recollect our chats together, my doubts, and the healthy reason which you again enabled me, to acquire!" Pierre was feeling very moved, for was not this the strangest of adventures?
He a priest, who in a spirit of resignation had formerly endeavoured to believe, had ended by completely losing all faith through intercourse with this same doctor, who was then an unbeliever, but whom he now found converted, conquered by the supernatural, whilst he himself was racked by the torture of no longer believing.
"You who would only rely on accurate facts," he said, "you who based everything on observation! Do you renounce science then ?" Chassaigne, hitherto quiet, with a sorrowful smile playing on his lips, now made a violent gesture expressive of sovereign contempt.