“Oh! no. Don’t ask for that! I don’t want it!” said Mme. Martin quickly, as if she were frightened the miracle was going to be wrought on the spot. “I don’t want to be cured, only to be sustained, and to go on suffering a long time—as long, that is, as He likes—that I may prove I am not ungrateful; that I love him a little bit after all he has done for me! All he has done for me!” There was a look almost of ecstasy on her features as she said this, her face slightly upturned, but her eyes closed as if she were looking within her, into that sanctuary of her soul where God was present. I felt, rather than saw, Millicent turn a sudden, startled glance towards me.
“That is the most precious and most beautiful of all miracles,” I said presently, “that our hard hearts should be softened by the cross, and that we should come to love it for His sake; is it not?”
“Yes,” she replied; “it is the one I have most prayed for. It is to her I owe it.” And she turned to the Mater Dolorosa. “In my worst moments I always felt for her; that my cross was nothing compared to hers—nothing! Pauvre mère!”
When we were out of earshot, on the landing about half way down the narrow stair, Millicent stopped, and, looking round at me, said: “Her brain has begun to be affected; she is a little mad, poor creature, is she not?”
“Yes,” I replied, “she is; she has got what we call the madness of the cross. Many of our saints have died of it: la folie de la croix.”
Millicent stared at me for a moment with an expression that suggested some vague alarm as to my own sanity, but she made no further remark until we had got out into the street.
“What did she mean by saying it was the Virgin Mary that worked the miracle for her?” she then asked.
“She meant that the Mother of Sorrows had prayed for her and obtained a great grace for her.”
“But God would have given it to her, if she had asked him, without going to any creature for it, would he not?” answered Millicent.
“Perhaps; but he would be more willing to grant it to a creature who was sinless and his Mother, and who had stood by the side of his cross, than to a poor weak, rebellious creature who had sinned a thousand times and more. Does it not seem likely?”