Briefly, it was a piece of rare good luck, and seemed to make M.de Guersaint quite gay.
Eleven o'clock was now striking and the woeful procession of sufferers started off again through the sunlit streets and squares.

When it reached the hospital Marie begged her father and Pierre to go to the hotel, lunch and rest there awhile, and return to fetch her at two o'clock, when the patients would again be conducted to the Grotto.

But when, after lunching, the two men went up to the rooms which they were to occupy at the Hotel of the Apparitions, M.de Guersaint, overcome by fatigue, fell so soundly asleep that Pierre had not the heart to awaken him.

What would have been the use of it?
His presence was not indispensable.

And so the young priest returned to the hospital alone.