pockets and a burglar's kit; a hint of that, and the sheriff had
camped on the Parish House front porch with a Winchester across his
knees and handcuffs jingling in his pockets. No, I couldn't consult
the law.

I had yet a deeper and a better reason for waiting, which I find it
rather hard to set down in cold words. It is this: that as I grow
older I have grown more and more convinced that not fortuitously, not
by chance, never without real and inner purposes, are we allowed to
come vitally into each other's lives. I have walked up the steep sides
of Calvary to find out that when another wayfarer pauses for a space
beside us, it is because one has something to give, the other
something to receive.

So, upon reflection, I took that oilskin package weighted down with
the seven deadly sins over to the church, and hid it under the statue
of St. Stanislaus, whom my Poles love, and before whom they come to
kneel and pray for particular favors. I tilted the saint back upon his
wooden stand, and thrust that package up to where his hands fold over
the sheaf of lilies he carries. St. Stanislaus is a beautiful and most
holy youth. No one would ever suspect _him_ of hiding under his brown
habit a burglar's kit!

When I had done this, and stopped to say three Hail Marys for
guidance, I went back to the little room called my study, where my
books and papers and my butterfly cabinets and collecting outfits
were kept, and set myself seriously to studying my files of
newspapers, beginning at a date a week preceding my man's appearance.
Then: