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.
The preacher loitered, stopping to look at the river and the gaunt line of mills against the sky.