man whose head is easily unhinged, he gave him several orders respecting
the vehicles and the transport service, deploring the circumstance that
it would be impossible to conduct the patients to the Grotto immediately
on their arrival, as it was yet so extremely early. It had therefore been
decided that they should in the first instance be taken to the Hospital
of Our Lady of Dolours, where they would be able to rest awhile after
their trying journey.

Whilst the Baron and the superintendent were thus settling what measures
should be adopted, Gerard shook hands with a priest who had sat down
beside him. This was the Abbe des Hermoises, who was barely
eight-and-thirty years of age and had a superb head--such a head as one
might expect to find on the shoulders of a worldly priest. With his hair
well combed, and his person perfumed, he was not unnaturally a great
favourite among women. Very amiable and distinguished in his manners, he
did not come to Lourdes in any official capacity, but simply for his
pleasure, as so many other people did; and the bright, sparkling smile of
a sceptic above all idolatry gleamed in the depths of his fine eyes. He
certainly believed, and bowed to superior decisions; but the Church--the
Holy See--had not pronounced itself with regard to the miracles; and he
seemed quite ready to dispute their authenticity. Having lived at Tarbes
he was already acquainted with Gerard.

"Ah!" he said to him, "how impressive it is--isn't it?--this waiting for
the trains in the middle of the night! I have come to meet a lady--one of
my former Paris penitents--but I don't know what train she will come by.
Still, as you see, I stop on, for it all interests me so much."

Then another priest, an old country priest, having come to sit down on
the same bench, the Abbe considerately began talking to him, speaking of