And on arriving he perceived the girl's father, who was quietly seated beside her, and who at once wished to explain to him the reason of his long absence.

For more than a couple of hours that morning he had scoured Lourdes in all directions, applying at twenty hotels in turn without being able to find the smallest closet where they might sleep.

Even the servants' rooms were let and you could not have even secured a mattress on which to stretch yourself in some passage.

However, all at once, just as he was despairing, he had discovered two rooms, small ones, it is true, and just under the roof, but in a very good hotel, that of the Apparitions, one of the best patronised in the town.

The persons who had retained these rooms had just telegraphed that the patient whom they had meant to bring with them was dead.