"I'll be back in half an hour, parson," the Butterfly Man remarked meaningly. Then the three melted into the night. Left alone, I was far from sharing Madame's simple faith in our ability to untangle this miserable snarl. I knew now the temper of the men we had to deal with. I also understood that in cases like this the Southern trigger-finger is none too steady. Seen from a certain point of view, if ever men deserved an unconditional and thorough killing, these two did. Yet this homicidal specter turned me cold, for Mary Virginia's sake. For Eustis himself I could see nothing but ruin ahead, but I wished passionately to help the dear girl who had come to me in her stress. But what was one to do? How should one act? I sat there dismally enough, my chin sunk upon my breast; for as a plotter, a planner, a conspirator, I am a particularly hopeless failure. I have no sense of intrigue, and the bare idea of plotting reduces me to stupefaction. Perhaps because I am a priest by instinct, I always discover in myself the instant need of prayer when confronted by the unusual and the difficult. I have prayed over seemingly hopeless problems in my time and I think I have been led to a clear solution of many of them. Major Cartwright insists that this is merely because I bring desire and will to bear upon a given point and so release an irresistible natural force. He says prayer is as much a science as, say, mathematics--such and such its units, and such and such its fixed results. Well, maybe so. All I know is that when I beseech aid I think I receive it. So I ran over to the church and let myself in. I felt that at least for a few minutes I must kneel before the altar and implore help for her who was like my own child to me. The empty church was quite black save for the sanctuary lamp and the little red votive lights burning before the statues of the saints and of our Lady. All these many little lights only cast the veriest ghosts of brightness upon the darkness, but the white altar was revealed by the larger glow of the sanctuary lamp. There it shone with a mild and pure luster, unfailing, calm, steady, burning through the night, the sign and symbol of that light of Love which cannot fail, but burns and burns and burns forever and forever before an altar that is the infinite universe itself. My little-faith, my ready-to-halt faith, raised its head above the encompassing waters; the wild turmoil and torment died away: ... after the earthquake and the fire and the whirlwind, the still small voice....