"Do not be alarmed. Set out with confidence; you will arrive safely."
"Let us go home now," said Catherine to her two children.
Accordingly she took the road to Loubajac, holding them by the hand, without intimating to any one her critical state, and without showing any uneasiness, even to the midwife of her own village, who happened to be there in the midst of the crowd of pilgrims. With inexpressible happiness she quietly traversed the long and rough road which separated her from home. The two children were not afraid of it now; the sun was risen, and their mother was cured.
As soon as she returned, she wished still to pray; but immediately her pains returned. In a quarter of an hour she was the mother of a third son.[12]
At the same time, a woman of Lamarque, Marianne Garrot, had been relieved in less than ten days, merely by lotions with the water from the grotto, of a white eruption which had covered her whole face, and which for two years had resisted all treatment. Dr. Amadou, of Pontacq, her physician, was satisfied of the fact, and was an incontestable witness of it subsequently before the episcopal commission.[13]
At Bordères, near Nay, the widow Marie Lanou-Domengé, eighty years old, had been for three years a sufferer from an incomplete paralysis in the whole left side. She could not take a step without assistance, and was unable to do any work.
Dr. Poueymiroo, of Mirepoix, after having ineffectually used some remedies to restore life in the palsied parts, though continuing his visits, had abandoned medical treatment of the case.
Hope, however, is with difficulty extinguished in the hearts of the sick.
"When shall I get well?" the good woman would say to Dr. Poueymiroo, every time that he came.