questions quietly enough, though there was evident a suppressed
excitement beneath. She had been cured during the procession, she said;
she had stood up and walked. And her illness? She showed a certificate,
dated in the previous March, asserting that she suffered gravely from
tuberculosis, especially in the right lung; she added herself that hip
disease had developed since that time, that one leg had become seven
centimetres shorter than the other, and that she had been for some
months unable to sit or kneel. Yet here she walked and sat without the
smallest apparent discomfort. When she had finished her tale, a doctor
pointed out that the certificate said nothing of any hip disease. She
assented, explaining again the reason; but added that the hospital where
she lodged in Lourdes would corroborate what she said. Then she
disappeared into the little private room to be examined.

There followed a nun, pale and black-eyed, who made gestures as she
stood by Dr. Boissarie and told her story. She spoke very rapidly. I
learned that she had been suffering from a severe internal malady, and
that she had been cured instantaneously in the _piscine_. She handed in
her certificate, and then she, too, vanished.

After a few minutes there returned the doctor who had examined Juliette
Gosset. Now, I think it should impress the incredulous that this case
was pronounced unsatisfactory, and will not, probably, appear upon the
registers. It was perfectly true that the girl had had tuberculosis, and
that now nothing was to be detected except the very faintest symptom--so
faint as to be negligible--in the right lung. It appeared to be true
also that she had had hip disease, since there were upon her body
certain marks of treatment by burning; and that her legs were now of an
exactly equal length. But, firstly, the certificate was five months old,
secondly, it made no mention of hip disease; thirdly, seven centimetres