In the Bible account, as he read it, it had always been the devil who fled when things got too uncomfortable for him, and he was conscious of a tight-lipped, stern contempt for the devil.
He had about made up his mind what line to take with his daughter, when she ceased her sobbing and looked up through swollen eyes to relieve him of the necessity for talking her over to his point view.

What she said amazed him, but not be cause it came to him as a new idea.

She said, in different words, exactly what was passing in his own mind, and it was as though her tears and his search of the Scriptures had brought them both to one clear-cut conclusion.
"Why are we here, father ?" she asked him suddenly; and because she took him by surprise he did not answer her at once.

"We are here to do good aren't we ?" That was no question; it was beginning of a line of argument.

Her father held his tongue, and laid his Bible down, and listened on.