Monsignor Delgard and Alice Pagett's relationship

Monsignor Delgard and Alice Pagett’s relationship is defined by a conflict between religious discernment and mounting supernatural suspicion. He does not simply accept Alice as a visionary, but neither can he dismiss the changes associated with her. As he investigates, he comes to regard her as the physical and spiritual catalyst for an ancient force, while remaining uncertain whether she is possessed, reincarnated, or being used by something beyond her understanding. His attempt to interpret her ends not in resolution but in his death, before he can confront the danger he believes her presence has released.

Ecclesiastical Scrutiny and Unresolved Claims

Delgard’s first position toward Alice is that of a churchman obliged to examine extraordinary claims without mistaking conviction for proof. When the Episcopal Council questions her, she remains calm in her belief that she has spoken with Mary. Asked why the visitations occurred, why the Mother of God chose her, and what purpose they served, Alice says that the Lady will disclose the purpose in time. Delgard recognizes that this answer does not settle the council’s questions.

The churchmen are divided over whether Alice has received a divine vision. They do not consider the reported cures sufficiently established as miraculous, and some regard her levitation as a feat that could be produced by illusion or mass hypnosis. The absence of a consistent audience account and of usable television or still-camera images further complicates judgment. Delgard’s concern therefore does not arise from uncritical acceptance: he is faced with striking events whose meaning remains contested, and with evidence that neither confirms a miracle nor makes the experiences easy to explain away.

That uncertainty is set against Delgard’s sense of spiritual depletion. He sees the exhaustion affecting the church and household as difficult to reconcile with the wave of religious interest and reported cures. Alice’s apparent role in a public revival does not reassure him. The contrast between visible religious excitement and his own foreboding makes her case a source of anxiety as well as inquiry.

Alice as the Catalyst

As Delgard’s investigation deepens, his understanding of Alice changes from that of a child reporting visions to that of a central agent in a wider process. The weakness he has felt around the church, the interference with electrically operated machinery, and the unusual atmosphere seem to him to indicate that existing energy is being drained and transformed. He concludes that Alice is the physical and spiritual catalyst, though that conclusion does not mean he believes she consciously causes what is happening.

The old manuscript gives this suspicion a historical framework. Delgard connects Alice’s conception in the field where Einor was killed and burned centuries earlier with the possibility that a force associated with Einor has found a route back into the present. He considers whether the combination of religious fervor, the earlier priest’s actions, and Alice’s origins has made the return possible. In this interpretation, Alice is not merely an observer of supernatural events: her life has become the point at which the manuscript’s history and the contemporary miracles meet.

Yet Delgard cannot make the explanation secure even to himself. Alice’s childhood disability, her later recovery, and the cures attributed to her could indicate psychic influence rather than divine intervention. Her speaking in an unfamiliar tongue with a mature voice and archaic language increases his alarm, but leaves two competing possibilities open: possession by Einor or the migration of Einor’s soul into a new body. As a Catholic priest, he knows that reincarnation has no proper place in his doctrine; nevertheless, the possibility persists in his thoughts. His relationship with Alice is thus shaped by an interpretive limit: he sees her as essential to the events, but cannot determine what she is within them.

A Theory of Power and a Need for Help

At prayer in St. Joseph’s Church, Delgard develops a further theory about what Alice’s apparent powers mean. He reasons that Einor did not cure the sick directly; rather, she drew together the wills, energies, and beliefs of other people, directing a collective psychic force through them. He suspects that this same power is now operating through Alice with greater strength than it possessed in Einor’s lifetime. In this account, Alice is both a channel and a catalyst, while the people who believe in or gather around her supply part of the force that makes the reported cures possible.

This theory complicates any simple division between Alice as a holy instrument and Alice as a source of evil. Delgard can acknowledge that the cures appear miraculous while doubting that their cause is divine. He wonders whether Alice is being controlled, whether Einor has returned through her, and what purpose the power might serve. None of these questions yields a settled answer. His response is to seek assistance through his bishop from people equipped to investigate such matters, while placing his deepest hope in divine help. He feels inadequate before a force he cannot fully comprehend, and Alice’s importance to it makes her a focus of both investigation and fear.

Death Before Resolution

Delgard’s inquiry does not culminate in a decisive judgment about Alice. At St. Joseph’s Church, while he is praying, the statue of the Virgin Mary begins to crack and shed pieces. Gerry Fenn enters and sees Delgard facing the statue; a small hooded figure is also present in the church, but the passage does not establish its identity. The statue then explodes, killing Delgard before he can act on his suspicions or resolve what Alice’s connection to the force means.

Fenn reaches the dead priest and sees that the hooded figure has vanished. Delgard’s death therefore closes the relationship at the moment when his private interpretation has become most urgent. He has moved from examining Alice’s claims to believing that her presence is linked to a returning power, but he dies without proving whether she is its host, its instrument, or something else. Their relationship remains a failed effort at discernment: the churchman searches for a category that can contain Alice’s significance, while the events around her continue beyond his ability to explain or control them.