and flooded the great room for an instant. It allowed me to get a good
look at the face of the priest. As I stood there staring at him I heard
him say to the old man as he bade him good-by, "Yes, tell her I'll be
there in the morning."

Then he turned to me, and I was still staring. And as I stared I was
repeating to myself the words the people said when Dante used to pass,
"There is the man who has been to Hell!"

"You are an Englishman?" said Father Francis to me pleasantly as he held
out his hand. "Yes," I said; "I am an Englishman--that is, no--an
American!"

I was wondering if he had really heard me make that Dante remark; and
anyway, I had been rudely staring at him and listening with both ears to
his conversation with the old man. I tried to roll my hat, and had I a
cudgel I would surely have dropped it; and with it all I wondered if the
dog of Flanders waiting outside was not getting impatient for me!

"Oh, an American! I'm glad--I have very dear friends in America!"

Then I saw that Father Francis did not look so much like the exiled
Florentine as I had thought, for his smile was winning as that of a woman,
the corners of his mouth did not turn down, and the nose had not the Roman
curve. Dante was an exile: this man was at home--and would have been,
anywhere.

He was tall, slender and straight; he must have been sixty years old, but
the face in spite of its furrows was singularly handsome. Grave, yet not
depressed, it showed such feminine delicacy of feeling, such grace, such