“Why do you say He is here?”

“Because” (Trenholme called out his words in the same high key) “before He died, and after, He said He would always be with His servants.  Don’t you believe what He said?”

Again the old man yielded a few paces, evidently listening and hearing with difficulty, perhaps indeed only hearing one or two words that attracted him.

“Did the Lord say it to you?” he asked eagerly.

“No.”

There was blank disappointment shown instantly.  They had come to a standstill again.

“Do you know him?” The strong old face was peering eagerly into his, as if it had not been dark.  “Have you heard his voice?”

“I don’t know,” answered Trenholme, half angrily.

Without another word the old man shook him off, and turned once more to the starry sky above.

“Lord Jesus!” he prayed, “this man has never heard thy voice.  They who have heard Thee know thy voice—­they know, O Lord, they know.”  He retraced all the steps he had taken with Trenholme and continued in prayer.

After that, although Trenholme besought and commanded, and tried to draw him both by gentleness and force, he obtained no further notice.  It was not that he was repulsed, but that he met with absolute neglect.  The old man was rock-like in his physical strength.

Trenholme looked round about, but there was certainly no help to be obtained.  On the one side he saw the birch wood indistinctly; the white trunks half vanished from sight against the white ground, but the brush of upper branches hung like the mirage of a forest between heaven and earth.  All round was the wild region of snow.  From his own small house the lamp which he had left on the table shot out a long bright ray through a chink in the frostwork on the window.  It occurred to him that when he had fetched down the lamp it was probably this ray, sudden and unexpected in such a place, that had attracted his strange visitor to his house.  Had his poor dazed brain accepted it as some sign of the glorious appearing for which he waited?

Trenholme looked again at his companion.  It mattered nothing to him who or what he was; he would have done much to still that pleading voice and pacify him, but since he could not do this, he would go for a little while out of sight and hearing.  He was fast growing numb with the fierce cold.  He would come back and renew his care, but just now he would go home.  He walked fast, and gained his own door with blood that ran less chill.

He heaped his stove with fresh logs, and set on food to warm, in the hope that the stranger might eventually partake of it, and then, opening the stove door to get the full benefit of the blaze, he sat down for a little while to warm himself.  He looked at his watch, as it lay on the table, with that glance of interest which we cast at a familiar thing which has lain in the same place while our minds have undergone commotion and change.  Midnight had passed since he went out, and it was now nearly two o’clock.