int upon him! He had hung upon his cross and I had not
known. Oh, Butterfly Man, I had not known!

"She'll be able to talk to you in a few minutes now, parson." He was
so perfectly unconscious of himself that he had no idea he had just
made mute confession. He added, doubtfully: "She said she had to come
to you, about something--I don't know what. It's up to you to find
out--she's got to talk to you, parson."

"But--I wanted to talk to you, Padre. That's why I--ran away from home
in the middle of the night." She sat suddenly erect. "I just couldn't
stand things, any more--by myself--"

Gone was the fine lady, the great beauty, the proud jilt who had
broken Laurence's heart and maddened and enslaved Inglesby. Here was
only a piteous child with eyes heavy from weeping, with a pale and sad
face and drooping childish lips. And yet she was so dear and so
lovely, for all her reddened eyelids and her reddened little nose,
that one could have wept with her. The Butterfly Man, with an intake
of breath, stood up.

"I shall leave you with the Padre now," he said evenly, "to tell him
what you wanted to tell him. Father, understand: there's something
rotten wrong, as I've been telling you all along. Now she's got to
tell you what it is and all about it. Everything. Whether she likes to
or not, and no matter what it is, she's got to tell you. You
understand that, Mary Virginia?"

She fixed him with a glance that had in it something hostile and
oblique. Even with those dearest of women whom I adore, there are
moments when I have the impression that they have, so to speak, their
ears laid back flat, and I experience what I may justly term cat-fear.
I felt it then.

"Oh, don't have too much consideration for my feelings, Mr. Flint!"
said she, with that oblique and baffling glance, and the smile Old
Fitz once likened to the Curve in the Cat's Tail. "Indeed, why should
you go? Why don't you stay and find out _why_ I wanted to run to the
Padre--to beg him to find some way to help me, since I can't fall like
a plum into Mr. Inglesby's hand when Mr. Hunter shakes the Eustis
family tree!"

His breath came whistlingly between his teeth.

"Parson! You hear?" he slapped his leg with his open palm. "Oh, I knew
it, I knew it!" And he turned upon her a kindling glance:

"I knew all along it was never in you to be anything but true!" said
the Butterfly Man.

CHAPTER XVI

"WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR"

It is impossible for m