It was slow work at first. The earlier questions on his list led her into unfamiliar fields. She had never troubled her mind over metaphysics. She was not sure what kind of a god she believed in--nor whether It really ought to be called "God." She had given no thought to the question whether this is the best or worst possible world. The prophecies, which her father had loved so much, inclined her strongly to the idea that it might be made a better one. But she had never even tried to determine whether the Universe is an elaborate and precise mechanical instrument, a personally conducted puppet show, or a roulette wheel. Her inability to answer these questions--and the way he put them made them seem very important--shamed her. He seemed to be sounding the depths of her ignorance. Did she believe in a future life? She threw up her hands. "I don't know." "Nobody knows. It's a question of belief. You loved your father very much, and when you were a little girl he died. Was that the end of him?" She shook her head. He waited patiently for words. "No. It wasn't the end of him. Anyhow the memory lasts." "Do you ever talk to him now?" "Sometimes. I pretend to." "Is it as good as if he was really here?" "Almost--sometimes." "Well. After you die do you think you'll meet him?" Yetta curled herself up a little tighter on the window-seat, her forehead puckered into deep wrinkles. "Yes," she said after a while. "I think--once, anyhow--I'll have a chance to talk to him--tell him everything and ask him what was right and wrong--and he'll tell me." "How will he look?" "I don't know. But I'll know it's him." The ordeal became easier as the questions began to deal with more mundane problems. But before long they got into deep water again. "Do you believe that honesty is the best policy?" That took a lot of thinking and brought back the wrinkles. "Honesty--telling the truth," she said at last. "I guess it's the best something, but it ain't always the best policy. If I hadn't perjured myself, we wouldn't have won this strike." "What?" "I don't mind telling you. I lied in court. I swore I didn't hit Pick-Axe; but I tried to kill him." Longman whistled softly. "Tell me about it." When she had told him all,--what Pick-Axe had said and done, how suddenly blind rage had overcome her, how at length Braun had persuaded her to lie,--she asked him if he thought honesty would have been the best policy in this case. "I'm asking questions this afternoon, not answering them," he said gravely. "This interests me a lot. So you think it's sometimes right to lie in a good cause."