Her sufferings continued, if possible, to increase. Sitting up, and with her eyes closed, she fell from one side to another, while smothered groans escaped her lips. If she laid down, she was in danger of being stifled; her breathing was hurried and oppressed, and all her nerves and muscles were shaken and trembled with anguish. After violent retching, she suffered terrible pain in her bowels, so much so that it was feared gangrene must be forming there. Her throat was parched and burning, her mouth swollen, her cheeks crimson with fever, her hands white as ivory. The scars of the stigmas shone like silver beneath her distended skin. Her pulse gave from 160 to 180 pulsations per minute. Although unable to speak from her excessive suffering, she bore every duty perfectly in mind. On the evening of the 26th, she said to her friend, 'Today is the ninth day, you must pay for the wax taper and novena at the chapel of St. Anne.' She was alluding to a novena which she had asked to have made for her intention, and she was afraid lest her friends should forget it. On the 27th, at two o'clock in the afternoon, she received Extreme Unction, greatly to the relief both of her soul and body. In the evening her friend, the excellent Cure of H___, prayed at her bedside, which was an immense comfort to her. She said to him: 'How good and beautiful all this is!' And again: 'May God be a thousand times praised and thanked!' The approach of death did not wholly interrupt the wonderful union of her life with that of the Church. A friend having visited her on the 1st of February in the evening, had placed himself behind her bed where she could not see him, and was listening with the utmost compassion to her low moans and interrupted breathing, when suddenly all became silent, and he thought that she was dead. At this moment the evening bell ringing for the matins of the Purification was heard. It was the opening of this festival which had caused her soul to be ravished in ecstasy. Although still in a very alarming state, she let some sweet and loving words concerning the Blessed Virgin escape her lips during the night and day of the festival. Towards twelve o'clock in the day, she said in a voice already changed by the near approach of death, 'It was long since I had felt so well. I have been ill quite a week, have I not? I feel as though I knew nothing about this world of darkness! O, what light the Blessed Mother of God showed me! She took me with her, and how willingly would I have remained with her!' Here she recollected herself for a moment, and then said, placing her finger on her lip: 'But I must not speak of these things.' From that time she said that the slightest word in her praise greatly increased her sufferings.