, parson, but to my
mind the best way to fight the devil is with fire. What did you do
with those tools?"

"_Tools?_" in a dry whisper. "_Tools_, John?"

"Tools. Kit. Layout. You had them. Could you put your hand on them in
a hurry to-night? Don't stare so, man! And for the Lord's love don't
you tell me you destroyed them! What did you do with my tools?"

The four winds roared in my ears, and one lifted the hair on my scalp,
as if the Rider on the Pale Horse had passed by. By way of reply I
placed a heavy package on the table before him, slumped into my chair,
and covered my face with my hands. Oh, Stanislaus, little saint, what
had we done between us to-night to the Butterfly Man?

When I looked up again he had risen. With his hands gripping the edge
of the table until the knuckles showed white, and his neck stretched
out, he was staring with all his eyes. A low whistle escaped him.
Wonder, incredulity, a sort of ironic amusement, and a growing,
iron-jawed determination, expressed themselves in his changing
countenance. Once or twice he wet his lips and swallowed. Then he sat
down again, deliberately, and fixed upon me a long and somewhat
disconcerting stare, as if he were rearranging and tabulating his
estimate of Father Armand Jean De Rance. He took his head in his
hands, and with slitted eyes considered the immediate course of action
to which the possession of that package committed him. One surmised
that he was weighing and providing for every possible contingency.

Tentatively he spread out his fine hands, palms uppermost, and flexed
them; then, turning them, he laid them flat upon the table and again
spread out his fingers. They were notable hands--shapely, supple,
strong as steel, the thin-skinned fingertips as delicate and sensitive
of touch as the antennae he was used to handling. They were even more
capable than of old, because of the exquisite work they had been
trained to accomplish, work to which only the most skilled lapidary's
is comparable. Apparently satisfied, he drew the bundle toward him.
Before he opened it he lifted those cool, blue, and ironic eyes to
mine; and I am sure I was by far the paler and more shaken of the two.

"They were in the crook of St. Stanislaus' arm." I tried to keep my
voice steady. "I was praying--when you were gone." Somehow, I did not
find it easy to explain to him. "And ... I remembered.... And I
brought them with me ... so in case you also ... remembered--" I could