He had showed her, that Sunday evening after the sermon on foreign missions, what he felt had been his awful sin: he had deprived his people of the bread of life for her sake, and, for fear of jarring the perfect peace of their lives and giving her a moment's unhappiness, he had shrunk from his duty to her soul.
At first Helen had been incredulous.

She could not realize that her mere unbelief in any doctrine, especially such a doctrine as this of eternal punishment, could be a matter of serious importance to her husband.

It needed an effort to treat his argument with respect.

"What does it matter ?" she kept saying.

"We love each other, so never mind what we believe.