mass in a convent chapel. What desecration! What debasement! When I went
to M. le Curé, he smiled at my vehemence. There was pain in his smile,
and it might be indignation; but he was not furious like me.

'They will conquer you, my friend,' he said.

'Never,' I cried. 'Before I might have yielded. But to tell me the
gates of death have been rolled back, and Heaven revealed, and the great
God stooped down from Heaven, in order that mass should be said
according to the wishes of the community in the midst of the sick wards!
They will never make me believe this, if I were to die for it.'

'Nevertheless, they will conquer,' M. le Curé said.

It angered me that he should say so. My heart was sore as if my friend
had forsaken me. And then it was that the worst step was taken in this
crusade of false religion. It was from my mother that I heard of it
first. One day she came home in great excitement, saying that now indeed
a real light was to be shed upon all that had happened to us.

'It appears,' she said, 'that Pierre Plastron was in the hospital all
the time, and heard and saw many wonderful things. Sister Genevieve has
just told me. It is wonderful beyond anything you could believe. He has
spoken with our holy patron himself, St. Lambert, and has received
instructions for a pilgrimage--'

'Pierre Plastron!' I cried; 'Pierre Plastron saw nothing, ma mère. He
was not even aware that anything remarkable had occurred. He complained
to us of the Sisters that they neglected him; he knew nothing more.'