“‘You see now, papa,’ said he to me every moment, ‘it was only the Blessed Virgin who could cure me. When I told you so before, I was sure of it.’
“At the hotel, he ate with an excellent appetite; and how I enjoyed watching him!
“He wanted to return on foot to the Grotto to give thanks for his deliverance, and actually did so.
“‘You will be very grateful to the Holy Virgin, will you not?’ said a priest to him.
“‘Ah! I shall never forget,’ said he.
“At Tarbes, we stopped at the hotel where we had put up the day before. They were on the lookout for us. They seem to have had (as I think I told you) a feeling that we would be successful. There was a great rejoicing. People gathered around us to see him eat with a relish everything that was served upon the table; to see him eat heartily who the day before could only swallow a few spoonfuls of liquid. That time seemed to me long gone by.
“This illness, against which the science of the most able physicians had failed, and which had just been so miraculously cured, had lasted two years and nineteen days.
“We were in haste to return to his mother, and took the express train for Bordeaux. The child was overcome with fatigue by the journey, and I should also say by his emotions,
were it not for his peaceable and constant calmness in spite of his sudden cure, which overwhelmed him with joy, but did not astonish him. He wanted to go to bed on reaching home. He was extremely sleepy, and took no supper. His mother, who had nearly died of joy before our return, when she saw him so exhausted and refusing to eat, was seized by a horrible doubt. She told me that I had deceived her, and I had the greatest difficulty in making myself believed. But how she rejoiced when, the next morning, Jules sat down at our table, and breakfasted with a better appetite than ourselves. It was not till then that she became reassured.”
“And since then,” I asked him, “has there been no relapse?”