The study windows were open and the sweet wind and the warm sun poured in unchecked. The stir of bees, the scent of honey-locust just opening, drifted in, and the slow solemn clangor of church bells, and lilts and flutings and calls and whistlings from the tree-tops. We could see pa.s.sing groups of our neighbors, fathers and mothers shepherding little flocks of children in their Sunday best, trotting along with demure Sabbath faces on their way to church. The b.u.t.terfly Man looked out, waved gaily to the pa.s.sing children, who waved back a joyous response, nodded to their smiling parents, followed the flight of a tanager's sober spouse, and sniffed the air luxuriously.

"Oh, somebody's got to stage-manage, parson," he said at last, lightly enough, but with a hint of tiredness in his eyes. "And then vanish behind the scenes, leaving the hero and heroine in the middle of the spotlight, with the orchestra tuning up 'The Voice that Breathed o'er Eden,'" he finished, without a trace of bitterness. "So I sent Madame a note by a little n.i.g.g.e.r newsie." His eyes crinkled, and he quoted the favorite aphorism of the colored people, when they seem to exercise a meticulous care: "Brer Rabbit say, 'I trus' no mistake.'"

"You are a bold man," said I again, with a respect that made him laugh. Then we went over to his rooms to wait, and while we waited I tried to read a chapter of a book I was anxious to finish, but couldn't, my eyes being tempted by the greener and fresher page opening before them. Flint smoked a virulent pipe and read his papers.

Presently he laid his finger upon a paragraph and handed me the paper.... And I read where one "Spike" Frazer had been shot to death in a hand-to-hand fight with the police who were raiding a dive suspected of being the rendezvous of drug-fiends. Long wanted and at last cornered, Frazer had fought tigerishly and died in his tracks, preferring death to capture. A sly and secretive creature, he had had a checkered career in the depths. It was his one boast that more than anybody else he had known and been a sort of protege of the once notorious Slippy McGee, that King of Crooks whose body had been found in the East River some years since, and whose daring and mysterious exploits were not yet altogether forgotten by the police or the underworld.

"_Sic transit gloria mundi!_" said the b.u.t.terfly Man in his gentle voice, and looked out over the peaceful garden and the Sunday calm with inscrutable eyes. I returned the paper with a hand that shook. It seemed to me that a deep and solemn hush fell for a moment upon the glory of the day, while the specter of what might have been gibbered at us for the last time.

Out of the heart of that hush walked two women--one little and rosy and white-haired, one tall and pale and beautiful with the beauty upon which sorrow has placed its haunting imprint. Her black hair framed her face as in ebony, and her blue, blue eyes were shadowed. By an odd coincidence she was dressed this morning just as she had been when the b.u.t.terfly Man first saw her--in white, and over it a scarlet jacket. Kerry and little Pitache rose, met them at the gate, and escorted them with grave politeness. The b.u.t.terfly Man hastily emptied his pipe and laid aside his newspapers.

"Your note said we were to come, that everything was all right," said my mother, looking up at him with bright and trustful eyes. "Such a relief! Because I know you never say anything you don't mean, John."

He smiled, and with a wave of the hand beckoned us into the workroom.

Madame followed him eagerly and expectantly--she knew her John Flint.

Mary Virginia came listlessly, dragging her feet, her eyes somber in a smileless face. She could not so quickly make herself hope, she who had journeyed so far into the arid country of despair. But he, with something tender and proud and joyful in his looks, took her unresisting hand and drew her forward.

"Mary Virginia!" I had not known how rich and deep the b.u.t.terfly Man's voice could be. "Mary Virginia, we promised you last night that if you would trust us, the Padre and me, we'd find the right way out, didn't we? Now this is what happened: the Padre took his troubles to the Lord, and the Lord presently sent him back to _me_--with the beginning of the answer in his hand! And here's the whole answer, Mary Virginia." And he placed in her hand the package of letters that meant so much to her.

My mother gave a little scream. "Armand!" she said, fearfully. "She has told me all. _Mon Dieu_, how have you two managed this, between midnight and morning? My son, you are a De Rance: look me in the eyes and tell me there is nothing wrong, that there will be no ill consequences--"

"There won't be any comebacks," said John Flint, with engaging confidence. "As for you, Mary Virginia, you don't have to worry for one minute about what those fellows can do--because they can't do anything. They're double-crossed. Now listen: when you see Hunter, you are to say to him, '_Thank you for returning my letters_.' Just that and no more. If there's any questioning, _stare_. Stare hard. If there's any threatening about your father, _smile_. You can afford to smile. They can't touch him. But _how_ those letters came into your hands you are never to tell, you understand? They did come and that's all that interests you." He began to laugh, softly. "All Hunter will want to know is that you've received them. He's too game not to lose without noise, and he'll make Inglesby swallow his dose without squealing, too. So--you're finished and done with Mr. Hunter and Mr.

Inglesby!" His voice deepened again, as he added gently: "It was just a bad dream, dear girl. It's gone with the night. Now it's morning, and you're awake."

But Mary Virginia, white as wax, stared at the letters in her hand, and then at me, and trembled.

"Trust us, my child," said I, somewhat troubled. "And obey John Flint implicitly. Do just what he tells you to do, say just what he tells you to say."

Mary Virginia looked from one to the other, thrust the package upon me, walked swiftly up to him, and, laying her hands upon his arms stared with pa.s.sionate earnestness into his face: the kind, wise, lovable face that every child in Appleboro County adores, every woman trusts, every man respects. Her eyes clung to his, and he met that searching gaze without faltering, though it seemed to probe for the root of his soul. It was well for Mary Virginia that those brave eyes had caught something from the great faces that hung upon his walls and kept company and counsel with him day and night, they that conquered life and death and turned defeat into victory because they had first conquered themselves!

"Yes!" said she, with a deep sigh of relief. "I trust you! Thank G.o.d for just how much I can believe and trust you!"

I think that meeting face to face that luminous and unfaltering regard, Mary Virginia must have divined that which had heretofore been hidden from her by the man's invincible modesty and reserve; and being most generous and of a large and loving soul herself, I think she realized to the uttermost the magnitude of his gift. Her name, her secure position, her happiness, the hopes that the coming years were to transform into realities--oh, I like to think that Mary Virginia saw all this, in one of those lightning-flashes of spiritual insight that reveal more than all one's slower years; I like to think she saw it given her freely, n.o.bly, with joy, a glorious love-gift from the limping man into whose empty hand she had one day put a little gray underwing!

I glanced at my mother, and saw by her most expressive face that she knew and understood. She had known and understood, long before any of us.

"If I might offer a suggestion," I said in as matter-of-fact a voice as I could command, "it would be, that the sooner those letters are destroyed, the better."

Mary Virginia took them from me and dropped them on the coals remaining from last night's fire--the last fire of the season. They did not ignite quickly, though they began to turn brown, and thin spirals of smoke arose from them. The b.u.t.terfly Man knelt, thrust a handful of lightwood splinters under the pile, and touched a match here and there. When the resinous wood flared up, the letters blazed with it. They blazed and then they crumbled; they disappeared in bits of charred and black paper that vanished at a touch; they were gone while we watched, the girl kneeling upon the hearthrug with her hand on Flint's arm, and I with my old heart singing like a skylark in my breast, and my mother's mild eyes upon us all.

Life and color and beauty flowed back into Mary Virginia's face and music's self sang again in her voice. She was like the day itself, reborn out of a dark last night. When the last bit of blackened paper went swirling up the chimney, and the two of them had risen, the most beautiful and expressive eyes under heaven looked up like blue and dewy flowers into the b.u.t.terfly Man's face. She was too wise and too tender to try to thank him in words, and never while they two lived would this be again referred to so much as once by either; but she took his hand, palm upward, gave him one deep long upward glance, and then bent her beautiful head and dropped into the center of his palm a kiss, and closed the fingers gently over it for everlasting keeping and remembrance. The eyes brimmed over then, and two large tears fell upon his hand and washed her kiss in, indelibly.

None of us four had the power of speech left us. Heaven knows what we should have done, if Laurence hadn't opened the door at that moment and walked in upon us. I don't think he altogether sensed the tenseness of the situation which his coming relieved, but he went pale at sight of Mary Virginia, and he would have left incontinently if my mother, with a joyous shriek, hadn't pounced upon him.

"Laurence! Why, Laurence! But we didn't expect you home until to-morrow night!" said she, kissing him motherly. "My dear, dear boy, how glad I am to see you! What happy wind blew you home to-day, Laurence?"

"Oh, I finished my work ahead of schedule and got away just as soon as I could," Laurence briefly and modestly explained thus that he had won his case. He edged toward the door, avoiding Mary Virginia's eyes. He had bowed to her with formal politeness. He wondered at the usually tactful Madame's open effort to detain him. It was a little too much to expect of him!

"I just ran in to see how you all were," he tried to be very casual.

"See you later, Padre. 'By, p't.i.te Madame. 'By, Flint." He bowed again to Mary Virginia, whose color had altogether left her, and who stood there most palpably nervous and distressed.

"Laurence!" The b.u.t.terfly Man spoke abruptly. "Laurence, if a chap was dying of thirst and the water of life was offered him, he'd be considerable of a fool to turn his head aside and refuse to see it, wouldn't he?"

Laurence paused. Something in the b.u.t.terfly Man's face, something in mine and Madame's, but, above all, something in Mary Virginia's, arrested him. He stood wavering, and my mother released his arm.

"I take it," said John Flint, boldly plunging to the very heart of the matter, "I take it, Laurence, that you still care a very great deal for this dear girl of ours?" And now he had taken her hand in his and held it comfortingly. "More, say, than you could ever care for anybody else, if you lived to rival Methusaleh? So much, Laurence, that not to be able to believe she cares the same way for you takes the core out of life?" His manner was simple and direct, and so kind that one could only answer him in a like spirit. Besides, Laurence loved the b.u.t.terfly Man even as Jonathan loved David.

"Yes," said the boy honestly, "I still care for her--like that. I always did. I always will. She knows." But his voice was toneless.

"Of course you do, kid brother," said Flint affectionately. "Don't you suppose I know? But it's just as well for you to say it out loud every now and then. Fresh air is good for everything, particularly feelings.

Keeps 'em fresh and healthy. Now, Mary Virginia, you feel just the same way about Laurence, don't you?" And he added: "Don't be ashamed to tell the most beautiful truth in the world, my dear. Well?"

She went red and white. She looked entreatingly into the b.u.t.terfly Man's face. She didn't exactly see why he should drive her thus, but she caught courage from his. One saw how wise Flint had been to have snared Laurence here just now. One moment she hesitated. Then:

"Yes!" said she, and her head went up proudly. "Yes, oh, yes, I care--like that. Only much, much more! I shall always care like that, although he probably won't believe me now when I say so. And I can't blame him for doubting me."

"But it just happens that I have never been able to make myself doubt you," said Laurence gravely. "Why, Mary Virginia, you are _you_."

"Then, Laurence," said the b.u.t.terfly Man, quickly, "will you take your old friends' word for it--mine, Madame's, the Padre's--that you were most divinely right to go on believing in her and loving her, because she never for one moment ceased to be worthy of faith and affection?

No, not for one moment! She couldn't, you know. She's Mary Virginia!

And will you promise to listen with all your patience to what she may think best to tell you presently--and then forget it? You're big enough to do that! She's been in sore straits, and she needs all the love you have, to help make up to her. Can she be sure of it, Laurence?"

Laurence flushed. He looked at his old friend with reproach in his fine brown eyes. "You have known me all my life, all of you," said he, stiffly. "Have I ever given any of you any reason to doubt me!"

"No, and we don't. Not one of us. But it's good for your soul to say things out loud," said Flint comfortably. "And now you've said it, don't you think you two had better go on over to the Parish House parlor, which is a nice quiet place, and talk this whole business over and out--together?"

Laurence looked at Mary Virginia and what he saw electrified him.

Boyishness flooded him, youth danced in his eyes, beauty was upon him, like sunlight.

"Mary Virginia!" said the boy lover to the girl sweetheart, "is it really so? I was really right to believe all along that you--care?"

"Laurence, Laurence!" she was half-crying. "Oh, Laurence, are you sure _you_ care--yet? You are sure, Laurence? You are _sure_? Because--I--I don't think I could stand things now if--if I were mistaken--"

I don't know whether the boy ran to the girl at that, or the girl to the boy. I rather think they ran to each other because, in another moment, perfectly regardless of us, they were clinging to each other, and my mother was walking around them and crying heartily and shamelessly, and enjoying herself immensely. Mary Virginia began to stammer:

"Laurence, if you only knew--Laurence, if it wasn't for John Flint--and the Padre--" The two of them had the two of us, each by an arm; and the b.u.t.terfly Man was brick-red and furiously embarra.s.sed, he having a holy horror of being held up and thanked.

"Why, I did what I did," said he, uncomfortably. "But,"--he brightened visibly--"if you _will_ have the truth, have it. If it wasn't for this blessed brick of a parson I'd never have been in a position to do anything for anybody. Don't you forget that!"

"What ridiculous nonsense the man talks!" said I, exasperated by this shameless casuistry. "John Flint raves. As for me--"

"As for you," said he with deep reproach, "you ought to know better than to tell such a thumping lie at this time of your life. I'm ashamed of you, parson! Why, you know good and well--"

"Why, John Flint, you--" I began, aghast.

My mother began to laugh. "For heaven's sake, thank them both and have done with it!" said she, a bit hysterically. "G.o.d alone knows how they managed, but this thing lies between them, the two great geese.

Did one ever hear the like?"

"Madame is right, as always," said Laurence gravely. "Remember, I don't know anything yet, except that somehow you've brought Mary Virginia and me back to each other. That's enough for _me_. I haven't got any questions to ask." His voice faltered, and he gripped us by the hand in turn, with a force that made me, for one, wince and cringe. "And Padre--Bughunter, you both know that I--" he couldn't finish.