Years went by, and they found themselves forever parted: he a priest, she prostrated by illness, no longer with any hope of ever being a woman.

That was their whole story--an ardent affection of which they had long been ignorant, then absolute severance, as though they were dead, albeit they lived side by side.

They again beheld the sorry lodging whence they had started to come to Lourdes after so much battling, so much discussion--his doubts and her passionate faith, which last had conquered.

And it seemed to them truly delightful to find themselves once more quite alone together, in that dark nook on that lovely night, when there were as many stars upon earth as there were in heaven.
Marie had hitherto retained the soul of a child, a spotless soul, as her father said, good and pure among the purest.

Stricken low in her thirteenth year, she had grown no older in mind.