off in
the glad sunshine, full of faith and of hope. To find what I had
found. I handed the note back, in silence.

"Oh, why, why, why?" burst out the boy, in a gust of acute torment.
"For God's sake, why? Think of her eyes and her mouth, Padre--and her
forehead like a saint's--No, she's not false. God never made such eyes
as hers untruthful. I believe in her. I've got to believe in her. I
tell you, I belong to her, body and soul." He began to walk up and
down the room, and his shoulders twitched, as if a lash were laid over
them. "I could forgive her for not loving me, if she doesn't love me
and found it out, and said so. Women change, do they not? But--to
take a man that loves her--and tear his living soul to shreds and
tatters--

"If _she's_ a liar and a jilt, who and what am I to believe? Why
should she do it, Padre--to me that love her? Oh, my God, think of it:
to be betrayed by the best beloved! No, I can't think it. This isn't
just any light girl: this is Mary Virginia!"

I put my hand on his shoulder. He is a head over me, and once again as
broad, perhaps. We two fell into step. I did not attempt to counsel or
console.

"Here I come like a whining kid, Padre," said he, remorsefully,
"piling my troubles upon your shoulders that carry such burdens
already. Forgive me!"

"I shouldn't be able to forgive you if you didn't come," said I. Up
and down the little room, up and down, the two of us.

Came a light tap at the door. The Butterfly Man's head followed it.

"Didn't I hear Laurence talking?" asked he, smiling. The smile froze
at sight of the boy's face. He closed the door, and leaned against it.

"What's wrong with her?" he asked, quickly. It did not occur to us to
question his right to ask, or to wonder how he knew.

In a dull voice Laurence told him. He held out his hand for the note,
read it in silence, and handed it back.

"What do you make of it?" I asked.

"Trouble," said he, curtly; and he asked, reproachfully, "Don't you
know her, both of you, by this time?"

"I know," said Laurence, "that she has sent me away from her."

"Because she wants to, or because she thinks she has to?" asked John
Flint.

"Why should she do so unless it pleased her?" I asked sorrowfully.

His eyes flashed. "Why, she's _herself!_ A girl like her couldn't play
anybody false because there's no falseness in her to do it with. What
are you going to do about it?"

"There is nothing to do," said Laurence, "but to rel