At last, however, the time came when the lights no longer ascended, for they had reached the summit of the hill and had begun to disappear at the last turn of the road.
Exclamations were rising from the crowd.

"They are passing behind the Basilica," said one.

"Oh! it will take them twenty minutes before they begin coming down on the other side," remarked another.

"Yes, madame," said a third, "there are thirty thousand of them, and an hour will go by before the last of them leaves the Grotto." Ever since the start a sound of chanting had risen above the low rumbling of the crowd.

The hymn of Bernadette was being sung, those sixty couplets between which the Angelic Salutation, with its all-besetting rhythm, was ever returning as a refrain.