'Already,' he repeated musingly. 'Am I _already_ tired? Is it not nearly time for rest? Lois,' he went on, 'there was an old man who made a prayer once, and I think since then it has ever been the best-loved prayer of all the old and the weary. You know it?' 'I think I do,' said Lois. 'Yes, you know it well.' But still, as if he could not resist repeating the dear words, Willie uncovered his head, saying in an earnest voice, 'Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word.' Then he turned to Lois with his child-like smile, and continued: 'I have prayed it so very often, Lois, that I sometimes think the answer must come soon.' For a moment or two he still stood looking upward; afterwards, he bade farewell again to Lois. And Lois, answering in the words she knew would please him best, said to him, 'Go in peace.' She was glad that he left her with a smile--glad of the blessing he called down upon her head. Watching him as he went away steadily, with his face turned towards the sun-rising, it seemed to Lois as if a rose-tinted morning cloud went with him and overshadowed him. On the evening of the following day Roger's father rode up to the farm-house. He brought tidings of wild weather out upon the moors, and told how he and his good horse had been more than once all but buried in a snow-drift. 'I should not have cared to come across on such a tempestuous day,' he added, 'only I want an answer, Roger, to my question.' 'But you got my answer, surely,' said Roger, quickly; 'Wandering Willie carried it to you yesterday.' His father shook his head. 'Wandering Willie has not been nigh our place,' he said, in a marked, grave tone. All looked at each other, but no one spoke, only Lois gave a low cry, 'Oh Willie, poor Willie!' 'Lois,' said Roger, coming to her side, 'trust us; we will do all we can--all that there is to do.' Half-an-hour later every man about the farm went out into the darkness. Lois, watching with her mother, saw her father go; Roger's father too--his long ride and his weariness quite forgotten. They walked with deliberate determined steps, and few words. Far ahead already, Lois could just distinguish Roger--all the young men of the place following him--as he stood for a moment a dim figure against a dark sky. He disappeared, and Lois said in her heart, 'May God go with him.' Three hours--four hours passed--they must be searching still! None of them returned that night. About midnight the scattered groups of searchers met together. It was a striking scene. The setting moon, hung round with inky clouds, cast a pale glimmering of light down on to the snow. All round, the moors lay wild and tumbled, with black shadows here and there, cast by the waning moon. It was cold, but intensely still, with a hush that gave an impression of breathless expectation.