Hesitating which way to turn, I looked up to see who it was that was coming into the Parish House garden.  And I fell to trembling, and rubbed my eyes, and stared again, unbelievingly.  There had been plenty of time for him to have visited the bank and withdrawn his account; there had been plenty of time for him then to have caught the three-o’clock express.  I had heard the train come and go this full hour since.  Surely my wish was father to the thought that I saw him before me—­my old eyes were playing me a trick—­for I thought I saw John Flint walking up the garden path toward me!  Pitache barked again, rose, stretched himself, and trotted to meet him, as he always did when the Butterfly Man came home.

He walked with the limp most noticeable when he tried to hurry.  He was flushed and perspiring and rumpled and well-nigh breathless; his coat was wrinkled, his tie awry, his collar wilted, and bits of grass and twigs and a leaf or so clung to his dusty clothes.  The afternoon sun shone full on his thick, close-cropped hair, for he carried his hat in his hands, gingerly, carefully, as one might carry a fragile treasure; a clean pocket handkerchief was tied over it.

He was making straight for his workroom.  I do not think he saw me until I stepped into the path, directly in front of him.  Then, stopping perforce, he looked at me with dancing eyes, wiped his red perspiring face with one hand, and nodded to the hat, triumphantly.

“Such an—­aberrant!” he panted.  He was still breathing so rapidly he had to jerk his words out.  “I’ve got the—­biggest, handsomest—­most perfect and wonderful—­specimen of—­an aberrant swallow-tail—­any man ever laid—­his eyes on!  I thought at first—­I wasn’t seeing things right.  But I was.  Parson, parson, I’ve seen many—­butterflies—­but never—­another one like—­this!” He had to pause, to take breath.  Then he burst out again, unable to contain his delight.

“Oh, it was the luckiest chance!  I was standing on the end platform of the last car, and the train was pulling out, when I saw her go sailing by.  I stared with all my eyes, shut ’em, stared again, and there she was!  I knew there was never going to be such another, that if I lost her I’d mourn for the rest of my days.  I knew I had to have her.  So I measured my distance, risked my neck, and jumped for her.  Game leg and all I jumped, landed in the pit of a nigger’s stomach, went down on top of him, scrambled up again and was off in a jiffy, with the darky bawling he’d been killed and the station buzzing like the judge’s bees on strike, and people hanging out of all the car windows to see who’d been murdered.