“No, no!—­” and Martine again tossed her arms aloft in a kind of frenzy.  “No—­but look you!—­there is a God!  Yes!—­we thought He was an invention of the priests—­but no—­He is a real God after all!—­Oh mes enfants!” and she tried to grasp the amazed Henri and Babette in her arms, “You are two of His angels!—­you took my boy to the Cardinal—­”

The children glanced at each other.

“Yes—­yes!” they murmured breathlessly.

“Well! and see what has happened!—­See!—­Here comes Fabien—!”

And as she spoke exultantly with an excitement that seemed to inspire every nerve of her body, a little figure came running lightly towards them,—­the light strong figure of a boy with fair curls flying in the wind, and a face in which the large, grey, astonished eyes flashed with an almost divine joy.

“Mother!—­Mother!” he cried.

Madame Patoux felt as though the heavens had suddenly opened to let the angels down.  Was this Fabien?  Fabien, who had hobbled painfully upon crutches all his life, and had left her house in his usual condition an hour or so ago?—­This straight-limbed child, running with the graceful and easy movement of a creature who had never known a day’s pain?

“Fabien, is it thou?” almost screamed Henri, “Speak, is it thou?”

“It is I” said Fabien, and he stopped, panting for breath,—­then threw his arms round his mother’s neck and faced them,—­“It is I—­ strong and well!—­thanks to God and the prayers of the Cardinal!”

For a moment there was a dead silence,—­a silence of stupefied amazement unbroken save by the joyful weeping of Martine.  Then suddenly a deep-toned bell rang from the topmost tower of Notre Dame—­and in the flame-red of the falling sun the doves that make their homes among the pinnacles of the great Cathedral, rose floating in cloudy circles towards the sky.  One bell—­and then another—­yet another!—­

“The Angelus!” cried Babette dropping on her knees and folding her hands, “The Angelus!—­Mother—­Martine—­Henri!—­Fabien!—­the Angelus!”—­

Down they all knelt, a devotional group, in the porch through which the good Cardinal had so lately passed, and the bells chimed sweetly and melodiously as Fabien reverently repeated the Angelic Salutation amid responses made with tears and thanksgiving, and neighbours and townfolk hearing of the miracle came hastening to the Hotel Poitiers to enquire into its truth, and pausing as they saw the cluster of kneeling figures in the porch instinctively and without question knelt also,—­then as the news spread, group after group came running and gathering together, and dropping on their knees amazed and awe-struck, till the broad Square showed but one black mass of a worshipping congregation under the roseate sky, their voices joining in unison with the clear accents of one little happy child; while behind them rose the towers of Notre Dame, and over their heads the white doves flew and the bells of the Angelus rang.  And the sun dropped slowly into the west, crimson and glorious like the shining rim of a Sacramental Cup held out and then drawn slowly back again by angel hands within the Veil of Heaven.