'Are you better, my dear child?' he asked her. 'You make me feel very uneasy.'
She felt too much oppressed at first to be able to reply to him, and burst into tears, as she let her head slip between his arms.
'I am not ill,' she murmured at last, in so feeble a voice that it was scarcely more than a breath; 'I am too happy. Let me cry; I feel delight in my tears. How kind of you to have come! I had been expecting you and calling you for a long time.'
Then her voice grew weaker and weaker till it was nothing more than a mere murmur of ardent prayer.
'Oh! who will give me wings to fly towards thee? My soul languishes without thee, it longs for thee passionately and sighs for thee, O my God, my only good thing, my consolation, my sweet joy, my treasure, my happiness, my life, my God, my all——'
Her face broke into a smile as she breathed these passionate words, and she clasped her hands fancying that she saw Abbé Faujas's grave face circled by an aureole. The priest, who had hitherto always succeeded in checking anything of this sort, felt alarmed for a moment and hastily withdrew his arms. Then he exclaimed authoritatively:
'Be calm and reasonable; I desire you to be so. God will refuse your homage if you do not offer it to Him in calm reason. What is most urgent now is to restore your strength.'
Rose returned to the room, quite distracted at not having been able to find any ether. The priest told her to remain by the bedside, while he said to Marthe in a more gentle tone:
'Don't distress yourself. God will be touched by your love. When the proper time comes, He will come down to you and fill you with everlasting felicity.'