The preacher loitered, stopping to look at the river and the gaunt line
of mills against the sky. He left the path, and went down to the edge of
the white ice, so full of air bubbles, it seemed like solid snow, and
listened to the gurgle of the hurrying water underneath.

A shed was built close to the stream, to shelter a hand fire-engine. It
had not been used for so long that the row of buckets beside it, which
were for dipping up water to fill it, were warped and cracked, their iron
bands rusty, and out of one or two the bottom had fallen. The door of the
shed creaked on its one hinge, and John looked up surprised to see how
dark it had grown, then he turned towards home.

"Yes," he said to himself, "I must show her her danger. It will grieve
her to force an argument upon her, and I don't think she has had one
unhappy hour since we were married; but even if it were not for her own
soul's sake, I must not let my people starve for the bread of life, to
spare her. I must not be silent concerning the danger of the sinner. But
it will trouble her,--it will trouble her."

John had dallied with temptation so long, that it had grown bold, and did
not always hide under the plea of wisdom, but openly dared him to inflict
the pain of grieving his wife upon himself. He still delayed, yet there
were moments when he knew himself a coward, and had to summon every
argument of the past to his defense. But before he reached the parsonage
door he had lapsed into such tender thoughts of Helen that he said again,
"Not quite yet; it seems to annoy her so to argue upon such things. I
must leave it until I win her to truth by the force of its own
constraining beauty. Little by little I will draw her attention to it.
And I must gradually make my sermons more emphatic."