of the bed and the light streamed down upon
her white shoulders and bare throat. On the evening
when he made the discovery the minister sat at the desk
in the dusty room from nine until after eleven and when
her light was put out stumbled out of the church to
spend two more hours walking and praying in the
streets. He did not want to kiss the shoulders and the
throat of Kate Swift and had not allowed his mind to
dwell on such thoughts. He did not know what he wanted.
"I am God's child and he must save me from myself," he
cried, in the darkness under the trees as he wandered
in the streets. By a tree he stood and looked at the
sky that was covered with hurrying clouds. He began to
talk to God intimately and closely. "Please, Father, do
not forget me. Give me power to go tomorrow and repair
the hole in the window. Lift my eyes again to the
skies. Stay with me, Thy servant, in his hour of need."

Up and down through the silent streets walked the
minister and for days and weeks his soul was troubled.
He could not understand the temptation that had come to
him nor could he fathom the reason for its coming. In a
way he began to blame God, saying to himself that he
had tried to keep his feet in the true path and had not
run about seeking sin. "Through my days as a young man
and all through my life here I have gone quietly about
my work," he declared. "Why now should I be tempted?
What have I done that this burden should be laid on
me?"

Three times during the early fall and winter of that
year Curtis Hartman crept out of his house to the room
in the bell tower to sit in the darkness looking at the
figure of Kate Swift lying in her bed and later went to
walk and pray in the streets. He could not understand
himself. For weeks he would go along scarcely thinking
of the school teacher and telling himself that he had
conquered the carnal desire to look at her body. And
then something would happen. As he sat in the study of
his own house, hard at work on a sermon, he would
become nervous and begin to walk up and down the room.
"I will go out into the streets," he told himself and
even as he let himself in at the church door he
persistently denied to himself the cause of his being
there. "I will not repair the hole in the window and I
will train myself to come here at night and sit in the
presence of this woman without raising my eyes. I will
not be defeated in this thing. The Lord has devised
this temptation as a test of