"He doesn't care at all. He is silent, always silent. You were right: He must be asleep. There's never any voice nor any that answers. And so all the light's gone out of life. What's the good of anything? What's the meaning of anything? Before, everything in the world seemed to have a secret joy behind it, and it was wonderful to feel part of a great plan, to be able to lend oneself to it and work for it. It was wonderful to feel that Christ knew and was our Master and Friend. Oh, I loved Him so! And He's gone, He's hidden. And with Him has gone all the light and joy in living." She said nothing. "I tell you it's gone!" he cried again, and it was an exceeding bitter cry. They were walking on the edge of a beech spinney. The tall dainty trunks towered up towards the sun and their wide crown of leaves moved together with smooth billowy swaying motions. And where their spreading branches reached out towards the slope of the Down, a rich wreath of colour was growing among them. Ursula stretched up her hand as they walked and broke off a spray of golden glory. She held it out to Paul without a word. He took it mechanically. "Lovely," he said, unthinkingly. "Oh, no," she replied calmly. "It's dull and ugly and useless and a combination of so many chemical elements that you can read all about in the books. It's perfectly plain. What is more, the leaves are already in decay." Paul heard her at first in blank amazement. He glanced from her face to the bough in his hand, and from the bough to her face. He could read nothing there. He looked up at the spinney from which she had broken it, and as he looked anew its brown and green and grey and gold cleared before his eyes. It was as sudden as a song. Some little hidden chain snapped inside him. "Please go on," he said, like a child. "You're not worth it. You're as blind as a bat. And you, with your verse and your talk, you pretended to see!" The scorn of her voice lashed him. She humbled him pitifully. And yet she said so little. It was the tone of the biting words that did it, and the fact that she was so seemingly unmoved. "I've tried to," he said, "you don't know how I've tried." "Tried! That's exactly what you would do. Tried! One has to try so very hard to see the sunlight." They walked on in silence. It was very odd; as they walked Paul began to study the short green grass and the delicate curving tendrils of moss as if he had never seen them before. "Paul," she said at last, and he was past thinking it strange, "if one is blind one cannot see. If one has eyes, one can't help seeing." He made an effort to recover his position. "But it's God that matters," he said, "it's not the things themselves. And if God is not there, why, then----"