They had said little as they climbed, as one does, for it is a climb, but now they turned to the left and walked slowly along the close-cropped ride through the tufted hummocky grass, skirting that ridge below which Fordham and Steyning nestle and a down winds to the sea. "Now," she said, "what's the matter? Don't you think you'd like to tell me?" "I would," cried Paul eagerly, "I'd love to. Besides----" He broke off, puzzling at her as they walked. "Well?" "I say, how did you know anything was the matter?" "I saw last night," she said imperturbably. "It struck me that you were down and out, and hadn't a soul to speak to." "You're right. But why do you bother with me?" She walked on deliberately. "I'm not bothering. You see, I like you, and I like your verse, and you're the sort of person it's worth while talking to in life." "That's very good of you," said Paul. "But I don't deserve all that. I'm an awful fool, and I've floundered about till I've got fairly well bogged." "I thought so. Tell me." "I don't know where to begin. Yes, I do though. After all, it's you who bogged me really." He smiled at her ruefully, but she took no notice, her eyes on the landscape below. "You said there was no God," went on Paul, "and I couldn't forget it, and spoke to Arnold about it at last. Then he rubbed it in. For three years, now, I've been seeking to get at the truth about God. You don't know how I've tried. I've tried to hear His voice, to know what He wants, and I've got no nearer. Or I think I haven't. It hadn't struck me till you spoke and Arnold pushed it home that perhaps the reason is that--that--there isn't a God at all." "Do you honestly feel that three years is a long time?" "Well--it's three years, anyway." "It is. Three years." Her tone arrested him. He knew what she meant. They walked a hundred yards while he turned it over. He had a sudden vision of the generations of seekers that had gone before him seeking. He saw vividly that where the mystics, saints and doctors had spent lifetimes, three years was not much. But as he saw, he flamed out. The floodgates were loosened. At last, like the psalmist, he spake with his tongue. "Yes. Three years. Oh, I know it's a drop in the bucket. But they're the three best years up to now of my life, and they are my life. They're all I've had to give. And if God is a Father to us, if He cares at all, He must be big enough to be interested even in my three years." "And instead of that----?"