THE VIGIL

WHEN Pierre dragged Marie in her box to the front of the Grotto, and
placed her as near as possible to the railing, it was past midnight, and
about a hundred persons were still there, some seated on the benches, but
the greater number kneeling as though prostrated in prayer. The Grotto
shone from afar, with its multitude of lighted tapers, similar to the
illumination round a coffin, though all that you could distinguish was a
star-like blaze, from the midst of which, with visionary whiteness,
emerged the statue of the Virgin in its niche. The hanging foliage
assumed an emerald sheen, the hundreds of crutches covering the vault
resembled an inextricable network of dead wood on the point of
reflowering. And the darkness was rendered more dense by so great a
brightness, the surroundings became lost in a deep shadow in which
nothing, neither walls nor trees, remained; whilst all alone ascended the
angry and continuous murmur of the Gave, rolling along beneath the
gloomy, boundless sky, now heavy with a gathering storm.

"Are you comfortable, Marie?" gently inquired Pierre. "Don't you feel
chilly?"

She had just shivered. But it was only at a breath from the other world,
which had seemed to her to come from the Grotto.

"No, no, I am so comfortable! Only place the shawl over my knees.
And--thank you, Pierre--don't be anxious about me. I no longer require
anyone now that I am with her."

Her voice died away, she was already falling into an ecstasy, her hands
clasped, her eyes raised towards the white statue, in a beatific