"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——?"
"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.