How could he have witnessed her
wondrous cure, indeed, without being convinced? Moreover, she had prayed
so fervently for him outside the Grotto on the previous night. And now,
therefore, to her excessive delight, she espied him transfigured like
herself, weeping and laughing, restored to God again. And this lent
increased force to her blissful fever; she dragged her little car along
with unwearying hands, and--as though it were their double cross, her own
redemption and her friend's redemption which she was carrying up that
incline with its resounding flagstones--she would have liked to drag it
yet farther, for leagues and leagues, ever higher and higher, to the most
inaccessible summits, to the transplendent threshold of Paradise itself.
"O Pierre, Pierre!" she stammered, "how sweet it is that this great
happiness should have fallen on us together--yes, together! I prayed for
it so fervently, and she granted my prayer, and saved you even in saving
me. Yes, I felt your soul mingling with my own. Tell me that our mutual
prayers have been granted, tell me that I have won your salvation even as
you have won mine!"
He understood her mistake and shuddered.
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