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 Rancé. 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 antennæ 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 go no further. I broke into a sort of groaning cry: "Oh, John, John! My son, my son!" "Steady!" said he. "Of course you remembered, parson. It's the only way. Didn't I tell her there's always a way out? Well, here it is!" His funny, twisted smile came to his lips; it twisted the heart in my breast. No thought of himself, of what this thing might mean to him, seemed to cross his mind. "I prayed," said I, almost sobbing, "I prayed. And, John, there stood St. Stanislaus--" I stopped again, choking. He nodded, understandingly. He was methodically spreading out the not unbeautiful instruments. And as he picked them up one by one, handling them with his strong and expert fingers and testing each with a hawk-eyed scrutiny, a most curious and subtle change stole over the Butterfly Man.