"Ah! how grateful I am to the Blessed Virgin," she continued; "she alone
can have acted, and I well understood her last evening. It seemed to me
that she made me a little sign just at the very moment when my husband
was making up his mind to come here to fetch me. I asked him at what time
it was that the idea occurred to him, and the hours fit in exactly. Ah!
there has been no greater miracle. The others make me smile with their
mended legs and their vanished sores. Blessed be Our Lady of Lourdes, who
has healed my heart!"
Just then the sturdy young man turned round, and she darted away to join
him, so full of delight that she forgot to bid the others good-bye. And
it was at this moment, amidst the growing crowd of patients whom the
bearers were bringing, that the Toulouse train at last came in. The
tumult increased, the confusion became extraordinary. Bells rang and
signals worked, whilst the station-master was seen rushing up, shouting
with all the strength of his lungs: "Be careful there! Clear the line at
once!"
A railway /employe/ had to rush from the platform to push a little
vehicle, which had been forgotten on the line, with an old woman in it,
out of harm's way; however, yet another scared band of pilgrims ran
across when the steaming, growling engine was only thirty yards distant.
Others, losing their heads, would have been crushed by the wheels if
porters had not roughly caught them by the shoulders. Then, without
having pounded anybody, the train at last stopped alongside the
mattresses, pillows, and cushions lying hither and thither, and the
bewildered, whirling groups of people.
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