dignified in his long white hair, a noticeable man, tall and erect to the last, like a storm-beaten pine; in spite of his threescore years and ten, his clear-cut face shone thoughtful, and striking, and earnest as ever.  He was preaching from the text, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling.”  And he preached, as he always did, eloquently.  His river of speech flowed high between banks out of sight of the multitude.  There was such perfect sincerity, such moral elevation in all he said, that Herminia felt acutely, as she had often felt before, the close likeness of fibre which united her to him, in spite of extreme superficial differences of belief and action.  She felt it so much that when the sermon was over she waited at the vestry door for her father to emerge.  She couldn’t let him go away without making at least an effort to speak with him.

When the Dean came out, a gentle smile still playing upon his intellectual face,—­for he was one of the few parsons who manage in their old age to look neither sordid nor inane,—­he saw standing by the vestry door a woman in a plain black dress, like a widow of the people.  She held by the hand a curly-haired little girl of singularly calm and innocent expression.  The woman’s dark hair waved gracefully on her high forehead, and caught his attention.  Her eyes were subtly sweet, her mouth full of pathos.  She pressed forward to speak to him; the Dean, all benignity, bent his head to listen.

“Father!” Herminia cried, looking up at him.

The Dean started back.  The woman who thus addressed him was barely twenty-eight, she might well have been forty; grief and hard life had made her old before her time.  Her face was haggard.  Beautiful as she still was, it was the beauty of a broken heart, of a Mater Dolorosa, not the roundfaced beauty of the fresh young girl who had gone forth rejoicing some ten years earlier from the Deanery at Dunwich to the lecture-rooms at Girton.  For a moment the Dean stared hard at her.  Then with a burst of recognition he uttered aghast the one word “Herminia!”

“Father,” Herminia answered, in a tremulous voice, “I have fought a good fight; I have pressed toward the mark for the prize of a high calling.  And when I heard you preach, I felt just this once, let come what come might, I must step forth to tell you so.”

The Dean gazed at her with melting eyes.  Love and pity beamed strong in them.  “Have you come to repent, my child?” he asked, with solemn insistence.

“Father,” Herminia made answer, lingering lovingly on the word, “I have nothing to repent of.  I have striven hard to do well, and have earned scant praise for it.  But I come to ask to-day for one grasp of your hand, one word of your blessing.  Father, father, kiss me!”

The old man drew himself up to his full height, with his silvery hair round his face.  Tears started to his eyes; his voice faltered.  But he repressed himself sternly.  “No, no, my child,” he answered.  “My poor old heart bleeds for you.  But not till you come with full proofs of penitence in your hands can I ever receive you.  I have prayed for you without ceasing.  God grant you may repent.  Till then, I command you, keep far away from me, and from your untainted sisters.”