'"
He--Pierre--sign that page of error and falsehood! A revolt roused him,
and he was on the point of shouting out the truth. But he felt the weight
of his cassock on his shoulders; and, above all, Marie's divine joy
filled his heart. He was penetrated with deep happiness at seeing her
saved. Since they had ceased questioning her she had come and leant on
his arm, and remained smiling at him with eyes full of enthusiasm.
"Oh, my, friend, thank the Blessed Virgin!" she murmured in a low voice.
"She has been so good to me; I am now so well, so beautiful, so young!
And how pleased my father, my poor father, will be!"
Then Pierre signed. Everything was collapsing within him, but it was
enough that she should be saved; he would have thought it sacrilegious to
interfere with the faith of that child, the great pure faith which had
healed her.
When Marie reappeared outside the office, the applause began afresh, the
crowd clapped their hands. It now seemed that the miracle was official.
However, certain charitable persons, fearing that she might again fatigue
herself and again require her little car, which she had abandoned before
the Grotto, had brought it to the office, and when she found it there she
felt deeply moved. Ah! that box in which she had lived so many years,
that rolling coffin in which she had sometimes imagined herself buried
alive, how many tears, how much despair, how many bad days it had
witnessed! And, all at once, the idea occurred to her that it had so long
been linked with her sufferings, it ought also to share her triumph.
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