flawless, the nameless charm of them altogether was only
another instance of how beautiful a woman can be as a whole
without attaining in any one detail to the lines marked out as
absolutely correct. The spirit and the life were there: and
material shapes could be disregarded.

Whatever moral characteristics this might be the surface of,
enough was shown to assure Somerset that she had some
experience of things far removed from her present
circumscribed horizon, and could live, and was even at that
moment living, a clandestine, stealthy inner life which had
very little to do with her outward one. The repression of
nearly every external sign of that distress under which
Somerset knew, by a sudden intuitive sympathy, that she was
labouring, added strength to these convictions.

'And you refuse?' said the astonished minister, as she still
stood immovable on the brink of the pool. He persuasively
took her sleeve between his finger and thumb as if to draw
her; but she resented this by a quick movement of displeasure,
and he released her, seeing that he had gone too far.

'But, my dear lady,' he said, 'you promised! Consider your
profession, and that you stand in the eyes of the whole church
as an exemplar of your faith.'

'I cannot do it!'

'But your father's memory, miss; his last dying request!'