Sometimes there was more light upon the dark scene, sometimes less, for giant rays of the northern light stalked the sky, passing from it, coming again, giving light faintly.

Trenholme felt an uncontrollable excitement come over him.  His mind was carried out of himself, not so much to the poor man who was praying, as to the Divine Man to whom the supplication was addressed; for the voice of prayer spoke directly from the heart of the speaker to One who he evidently felt was his friend.  The conviction of this other man that he knew to whom he was speaking caught hold of Alec Trenholme’s mind with mastering force; he had no conviction of his own; he was not at all sure, as men count certainty, whether there was, or was not, any ear but his own listening to the other’s words; but he did not notice his own belief or unbelief in the matter, any more than he noticed the air between him and the stars.  The colourlessness of his own mind took on for the time the colour of the other’s.

And the burden of the prayer was this:  Our Father, thy kingdom come.  Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

The hardihood of the prayer was astonishing; all tender arguments of love were used, all reasonable arguments as of friend with friend and man with man, and its lengthened pathos was such that Trenholme felt his heart torn for pity within him.

“Look here!” he said at last. (He had been listening he knew not how long, but the planets in the sky above had moved westward.  He took hold of the old man.) “Look here!  He won’t come so that you can see Him; but He’s here just the same, you know.”

The only result was that the old man ceased speaking aloud, and continued as if in silent prayer.

It seemed irreverent to interrupt him.  Trenholme stood again irresolute, but he knew that for himself at least it was madness to stand longer without exercise in the keen night.

“Come, Lord Jesus!” cried the old man again in loud anguish.  “Come.  The world is needing only Thee.  We are so wicked, so foolish, so weak—­we need Thee.  Come!”

Whether or not his companion had the full use of eyes and ears, Trenholme was emboldened by the memory of the help he had received on his fall to believe that he could make himself heard and understood.  He shouted as if to one deaf:  “The Lord is here.  He is with you now, only you can’t see Him.  You needn’t stay here.  I don’t know who you are, but come into my place and get warmed and fed.”

“How do you know He is here?” asked the old man, shaking his head slowly.

“Everybody knows that.”

“I can’t hear.”

“Everybody knows,” shouted Trenholme.

“How do you know?  What do you know?” asked the other, shaking his head sorrowfully.

Trenholme would have given much to comfort him.  He tried to drag him by main force in the direction of the house.  The old man yielded himself a few steps, then drew back, asking,