The other men slunk away, for the minister had taken the bottle, and Tom
Davis was following him through the narrow passages between the great
piles of boards, towards his house.

The boy had gone back to his block house; the pile of sawdust in the
sheltered corner was more comfortable and not more cheerless than his own
home.

John left Davis at his door. The man looked cowed, but there was no shame
in his face, and no sense of sin. It was unpleasant to be caught by the
preacher, and he was frightened by that awful word, which it was the
constant effort of his numb, helpless brain to forget.

John went on alone. He walked slowly, with his eyes fixed absently on the
ground, thinking. "Poor Davis," he said, "poor fellow!" The man's future
seemed quite hopeless to the preacher, and, thinking of it, he recalled
Mrs. Davis's regret that he had not spoken of hell in his sermon.

John sighed. His grief at Helen's unbelief was growing in his silence;
yet he realized the inconsistency of his love in hiding his sorrow from
her.

"It is robbing her, not to let her share it," he thought, "but I dare not
speak to her yet."

More than once during the winter he had tried to show her the truth and
the beauty of various doctrines, generally that of reprobation, but she
had always evaded discussion; sometimes lightly, for it seemed such a
small matter to her, but always firmly.