extreme? You know it's life or death sometimes: a stimulant has to be
used, or a person would die. Suppose I had to have it?"

His face flushed painfully. "Death is better than sin," he said slowly
and gently; "and you, if you----I don't know, Helen; no one knows his
weakness until temptation comes." His tone was so full of trouble,
Gifford, feeling the sudden tenderness of his own strength, said
good-naturedly, "What do you think of us poor fellows who confess to
a glass of claret at dinner?"

"And what must he have thought of the dinner-table at the rectory?" Helen
added.

"I don't think I noticed it," John said simply. "You were there."

"There, Helen, that's enough to make you sign the pledge!" said Gifford.

He watched them walking down the street, under the arching ailantus,
their footsteps muffled by the carpet of the fallen blossoms; and there
was a thoughtful look on his face when he went into his office, and,
lighting his lamp, sat down to look over some papers. "How is that going
to come out?" he said to himself. "Neither of those people will amend an
opinion, and Ward is not the man to be satisfied if his wife holds a
belief he thinks wrong." But researches into the case of McHenry _v._
Coggswell put things so impractical as religious beliefs out of his mind.

As for John and Helen, they walked toward the parsonage, and Gifford, and
his future, and his views of high license were forgotten, as well as the
sudden pain with which John had heard his wife's careless words about his
"awful doctrines."