“Don’t apologize, Padre,” said Mary Virginia, for it was she.  “It was my fault—­I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“Are you by any chance bound for the Parish House?  Because my mother will be on her way to a poor thing that’s just lost her only child.  Where have you been these past weeks?  I haven’t seen you for ages.”

“Oh, I’ve been rather busy, too, Padre.  And I haven’t been quite well—­” she hesitated.  I thought I understood.  For, possibly from some servant who had overheard Mrs. Eustis expostulating with her daughter, the news of Mary Virginia’s unannounced engagement had sifted pretty thoroughly throughout the length and breadth of Appleboro; a town where an unfledged and callow rumor will start out of a morning and come home to roost at night with talons and tailfeathers.

That Mary Virginia had all James Eustis’s own quiet will-power, everybody knew.  She would not, perhaps, marry Laurence in the face of her mother’s open opposition.  Neither would she marry anybody else to please her mother in defiance of her own heart.  There was a pretty struggle ahead, and Appleboro took sides for and against, and settled itself with eager expectancy to watch the outcome.

So I concluded that Mary Virginia had not been having a pleasant time.  Indeed, it struck me that she was really unwell.  One might even suspect she had known sleepless nights, from the shadowed eyes and the languor of her manner.

Just then, swinging down the street head erect, shoulders square, the freezing weather only intensifying his glowing fairness, came Howard Hunter.  The man was clear red and white.  His gold hair and beard glittered, his bright blue eyes snapped and sparkled.  He seemed to rejoice in the cold, as if some Viking strain in him delighted in its native air.

As he paused to greet us a coldness not of the weather crept into Mary Virginia’s eyes.  She did not speak, but bowed formally.  Mr. Hunter, holding her gaze for a moment, lifted his brows whimsically and smiled; then, bowing, he passed on.  She stood looking after him, her lips closed firmly upon each other.

Tucking her hand in my arm, she walked with me to the Parish House gate.  No, she said, she couldn’t come in.  But I was to give her regards to the Butterfly Man, and her love to Madame.

“Parson,” the Butterfly Man asked me that night, “have you seen Mary Virginia recently?”

“I saw her to-day.”

“I saw her to-day, too.  She looked worried.  She hasn’t been here lately, has she?”

“No.  She hasn’t been feeling well.  I hear Mrs. Eustis has been very outspoken about the engagement, and I suppose that’s what worries Mary Virginia.”

“I don’t think so.  She knew she had to go up against that, from the first.  She’s more than a match for her mother.  There’s something else.  Didn’t I tell you I had a hunch there was going to be trouble?  Well, I’ve got a hunch it’s here.”