“It became the nucleus, monsieur--the clearing in which it stands the headquarters, as it were, of her operations of search. There appeared no reason for this, but surely a divine intuition compelled her. At all periods she haunted the spot. Oftentimes was she to be secretly observed kneeling and praying there in an ecstasy of emotion. To the Blessed Virgin she directed her petitions. ‘Restore to me,’ she wept, ‘my darling Baptiste, and I swear to dedicate myself, for evermore a maid, to thy service!’ One day, by preconcerted plan, a body of villagers, armed with billhooks and axes, with the Curé at their head, surprised her at her post. ‘It is not for nothing, we are convinced,’ said the good father, ‘that you are led to frequent these thickets. Hence we will not proceed until we have laid bare the ground to the limit of ten perches, and, by the grace of God, revealed the mystery!’” “Well, M. Boppard?” “Now, monsieur, was confessed the wonder. At the priest’s words, the girl leapt to her feet. Her eyes, it is said by those that were there, burned like the lamp before the little altar of Our Lady of Succour. Her face was as white as _cardamines_--transparent, spiritual, like a phantom’s against the dark leaves. ‘You must do nothing,’ she said--‘nothing--nothing. Here but now, at the foot of the tree, the Blessed Virgin revealed herself to me as I kneeled and wept. Her heel was on the head of a serpent, whose every scale, different in colour to the next, was a gleaming agate; and in her hand she held a purple globe that was liquid and did not break, but round whose surface travelled without ceasing the firmament of white worlds in miniature. “Nicette,” she said, in a voice that seemed to have gathered the sweetness of all the sainted dead, “weep and search no more, my child; for some day thy brother shall be restored to thee. I, the Mother of Christ, promise thee this!”’” “Boppard,” said Ned quietly, “is the description yours or Mademoiselle Legrand’s?” “It is as I heard it, monsieur. I have not wittingly intruded myself.” “Yet you are a poet.” “But this is prose I speak.” “True: the prose of a nimble imagination. And, moreover, you are a student and a philosopher; and you believe this thing?” Boppard nodded his deprecatory poll. “Perhaps because I am also a poet, as monsieur says.” “It is probable. And Nicette is a poet; which is why she walks, as I understand, in the odour of sanctity.” “I do not comprehend, monsieur.” “Why should you wish to? This vision, this revelation--it has proved profitable to Méricourt?” “Again, I do not comprehend monsieur.” With the words on his lips, he pricked his ears to a murmuring sound that came subdued through the closed lattice. He rose and, instinctively reverential, tip-toed to the window. Ned followed him.