Hour after hour I waited at the hospice, knowing that Seraphine would keep her promise and send me some message. At about nine o'clock a little boy came with a note saying that I must come at once. Christopher was worse. As we hurried through the square, the whole place was ablaze with lights, the church itself outlined fantastically in electric fires, while great crowds of chanting pilgrims moved in slow procession, each man or woman carrying a torch or lantern or shaded candle and all lifting their voices in that everlasting cry of faith and worship: _Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria! Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria!_ Until the day of my death I shall hear that thunderous chorus sounding in my ears whenever memory turns back my thoughts to this fateful night. Seraphine met me at the door of the chamber where Christopher lay, feverish and delirious. A French doctor, with pointed beard, watched by the patient gravely, while a sad-eyed nurse held his poor feet huddled in her arms in an effort to give them warmth. Already the life forces were departing from my beloved. The doctor motioned me silently to a chair, but I came forward and sat on the bed, and bending over my dear one, I called to him fondly: "Chris! It's Penelope! Oh, my dear, my dear! Don't you know me?" I pleaded. But there was no answer, no recognition. An hour passed, two hours and still there was no indication that my dear Christopher realized that I was near him, bending over him, praying for him. He turned uneasily in his fever and now and then cried out with a great effort in his delirium; but he never spoke my name or made any reference to his love for me. It was heartbreaking to be there beside him and yet to feel myself so far away from him. At about eleven the doctor saw that a change was coming and warned me that there would be a lucid interval which would precede the final crisis. "Within an hour we shall know what to expect," he said. "Either your friend will begin to improve--his heart action will be stronger, his breathing easier, or--he will sink into a state of coma and--" the doctor finished his sentence with an ominous gesture. "You must have courage, dear lady. The balance of his life may be turned by you--either way. It will be a shock for him to see you here, a great shock. I cannot tell how that shock may affect him. It may save him, it may destroy him. No man of science in my place would take the responsibility of saying to you that you must or must not show yourself to this man at this moment. You must take the responsibility for yourself--and for him." "I understand, doctor," I said. "I will take the responsibility."