Silence followed, and they were two grave faces still that bent over the table; but there was the difference between the shadow on a mountain lake where there is not a ripple, and the dark stir of troubled waters. Diana's eye every now and then glanced for an instant at the face of her companion; it was very grave, but the broad brow was as quiet as if all its questions were answered, and the mouth was sweet and at rest in its stillness. She wished he would speak again; there was something in him that provoked her curiosity. He did speak presently. "This shows us what the meaning of life is," he said. "No," said Diana, "it doesn't--to me. It is just a puzzle, and as much a puzzle here as ever. I _don't_ see what the use of life is, or what we all live for; I don't see what it amounts to." "What do you mean?" asked her companion, but not as if he were startled, and Diana went on. "I shouldn't say so if people were always having a good time, and if they were just right and did just right. But they are not, Mr. Masters; you know they are not; even the best of them, that I see; and things like _this_ are always happening, one way or another. If it isn't here, it is somewhere else; and if it isn't one time, it is another; and it is all confusion. I don't see what it all comes to." "That is the thought of a moment of pain," said the minister. "No, it is not," said Diana. "I think it often. I think it all the while. Now this very afternoon I was sitting at the door here,--you know what sort of a day it has been, Mr. Masters?" "I know. Perfect. Just June." "Well, I was looking at it, and feeling how lovely it was; everything perfect; and somehow all that perfection took a kind of sharp edge and hurt me. I was thinking why nothing in the world was like it, or agreed with it; nothing in human life, I mean. This afternoon, when the company was here and all the talk going on--_that_ was like nothing out of doors all the while; and _this_ is not like it." There was a sigh, deep drawn, that came through the minister's lips; then he spoke cheerfully--"Ay, God's works have parted company somehow." "Parted--?" said Diana curiously. "Yes. You remember surely that when he had made all things at first, he beheld them very good." "Well, they are not very good now; not all of them." "Whose fault is that?" "I know," said Diana, "but that does not help me with my puzzle. Why does the world go on so? what is the use of my living, or anybody's? What does it amount to?" "That's your lesson," the minister answered, with a quick glance from his calm eyes. Not a bit of sentiment or of speculative rhapsody there; but downright, cool common sense, with just a little bit of authority. Diana did not know exactly how to meet it; and before she had arranged her words, they heard wheels again, and then the doctor came in.