Johnny said “Yes”; but suggested, “I think we’d better look round about the house once more.  I think I’ll take a light and look round again.”

Julia did not think it would be much use; however she consented, though she had to go with Johnny; she did not trust him with a lantern among the out-buildings.  They looked round once more, in the sheds and in the dark garden; afterwards they went out and looked beyond the wall all round, on the side where the heather grew and also on the side where the loose sand came close.  It took time; Johnny was too tired to move quickly or even to understand quickly what was said to him.  At last Julia stopped and spoke decisively.

“You had better go in now,” she said; “it won’t do for us both to be out any longer; one of us must go in, and I think it had better be you.  Make a good fire, see that there is plenty of hot water and get something to eat so as to be ready to do things when I come back.”

Johnny acquiesced and Julia, having watched him into the house, took up her lantern and set out in the direction of the sandhills.

It was her last resource; it did not seem to her likely that her father could have gone there; at the best of times he disliked the place, finding it very tiring.  Still, with the wind behind him as it would have been this morning, it is possible he would have found it the easiest way—­if he could have managed to forget what the coming back would be.  At all events she determined to try it, so she set out for the waste.

By this time the moon was rising, and, in spite of the driving clouds which had not all dispersed, at times it shone clear.  Beneath it the stretch of sand lay pale and desolate, a new-formed landscape of fresh contours, loosely-piled hills and shallow scooped hollows shaped by to-day’s wind.  An easy place for a man to miss his way with a gale blowing and the sand dancing blinding reels.  A hard place for a man to travel far when he had to face the wind; a strong man would have found it very tiring, a weak man might well have given it up, driven to waiting for a lull in the weather.  As for a man in the Captain’s health—­when Julia thought of it she hurried on, although she knew if her father had to-day, as he had all through his life, followed the line of least resistance, the chances were that her help would be of little avail to him now.

She carried her lantern low, looking carefully for footprints; soon, however, she put it out; she would do better without in the increasing moon-light.  But she found no prints; after all, as she remembered, she was hardly likely to; the wind and blowing sand would have obliterated them.  Over the first level of sand she went to the nearest rise without seeing anything; up to that and down the following hollow, looking in every curve and indentation, still without seeing anything.  Then she began to climb the next rise.  The moon was struggling through a long cloud, one moment eclipsed, the next shining with