reet almost
to the old Richmond place he stopped and picking up a
stone rushed off to the room in the bell tower. With
the stone he broke out a corner of the window and then
locked the door and sat down at the desk before the
open Bible to wait. When the shade of the window to
Kate Swift's room was raised he could see, through the
hole, directly into her bed, but she was not there. She
also had arisen and had gone for a walk and the hand
that raised the shade was the hand of Aunt Elizabeth
Swift.

The minister almost wept with joy at this deliverance
from the carnal desire to "peep" and went back to his
own house praising God. In an ill moment he forgot,
however, to stop the hole in the window. The piece of
glass broken out at the corner of the window just
nipped off the bare heel of the boy standing motionless
and looking with rapt eyes into the face of the Christ.

Curtis Hartman forgot his sermon on that Sunday
morning. He talked to his congregation and in his talk
said that it was a mistake for people to think of their
minister as a man set aside and intended by nature to
lead a blameless life. "Out of my own experience I know
that we, who are the ministers of God's word, are beset
by the same temptations that assail you," he declared.
"I have been tempted and have surrendered to
temptation. It is only the hand of God, placed beneath
my head, that has raised me up. As he has raised me so
also will he raise you. Do not despair. In your hour of
sin raise your eyes to the skies and you will be again
and again saved."

Resolutely the minister put the thoughts of the woman
in the bed out of his mind and began to be something
like a lover in the presence of his wife. One evening
when they drove out together he turned the horse out of
Buckeye Street and in the darkness on Gospel Hill,
above Waterworks Pond, put his arm about Sarah
Hartman's waist. When he had eaten breakfast in the
morning and was ready to retire to his study at the
back of his house he went around the table and kissed
his wife on the cheek. When thoughts of Kate Swift came
into his head, he smiled and raised his eyes to the
skies. "Intercede for me, Master," he muttered, "keep
me in the narrow path intent on Thy work."

And now began the real struggle in the soul of the
brown-bearded minister. By chance he discovered that
Kate Swift was in the habit of lying in her bed in the
evenings and reading a book. A lamp stood on a table by
the side