Kitty was vexed. "How foolish of him," she said. "Of course there are other ways, and Anna must have taken one of them, or we should have passed her; and he shouldn't have gone alone either, he should have taken Jabez and a lantern. What can he do if he finds her?"
"And he may get lost too," said Betty comfortingly. But Dan was already racing up through the dark wet street, too absorbed by the heroic side of his actions to spare a thought for the common sense.
Kitty dropped into a chair in a state of deep despondency, blaming herself for everything. "Why had she started for home without making sure about Anna? How wrong it was of her not to turn back! What would Aunt Pike say when she knew?" and so the thoughts poured through her mind until she was well-nigh distracted.
Tony, worn out by his long day in the fresh air, was fast asleep. Betty, exhausted by excitement and alarm, was scarcely able to keep awake. The servants were in the kitchen regaling themselves and Jabez with supper and a dish of horrors, when suddenly Kitty sprang to her feet with the force of an idea that had come to her. She would take the carriage and Jabez, and drive very slowly and carefully by another road straight back to Helbarrow Tors. They would inquire at every house they passed, and—only she did not tell Jabez this, for fear of alarming him—if need be, they would search even the tors themselves.
It would be very difficult, she knew; but what did difficulties matter at such a time as this? With Anna lost on such a night, her father and aunt away, and she alone responsible, they must do something, they must, they must, and quickly too. She looked at the clock; it was only seven. There was just a chance that they might find Anna and have her home in warmth and safety by ten. She ran to the kitchen and broached her plan to Jabez. He winced at the prospect, but raised no objection. Indeed, they were all too greatly alarmed to object to anything. Jabez had been picturing Anna in turn killed, walking into the water, stolen, wandering about lost and crying for help, so he could hardly refuse his help in rescuing her from one of these fates.
In a very short time Prue was harnessed, and with Kitty beside him, and a pile of rugs and wraps, Jabez was driving off at a good pace, while those at home prepared fires and hot blankets and everything else they could think of.
But many long, weary hours elapsed before the fires and the hot blankets were needed, and the next day was dawning, bleak and cold, when at last, to the intense relief and excitement of the weary watchers, old Prue's step was heard coming quickly down the street, and the two servants flew out to the door. But Jabez drove straight round to the yard with his load, and there, with the help of Kitty and Dan—who was with them—they lifted down a big still bundle, which was Anna, wet through, worn out, unconscious. They carried her in very tenderly and put her to bed at once, and everything they could do for her ease and comfort they did. But though her strength revived and the dreadful exhaustion passed away, it was soon evident that she was ill—very ill, it seemed to them—and Fanny in alarm ran for Dr. Lang; and at his request telegrams were sent to Dr. Trenire and Aunt Pike, bidding them come home at once; while poor Kitty, overcome with fatigue and anxiety and remorse that this should have happened while she was in charge of them all, went and shut herself up in her room, locking out even Betty.
The story of that night's search she told later—of their long, slow drive over the bleak roads in the teeth of a high wind and a driving rain; of their close examination of every yard of the way, one walking while the other drove; and of their hopelessness when they looked at the gateways and fields, into any of which Anna might have turned, and the lanes down which she might have wandered. But of her own feelings she could not speak—the awful anxiety and remorse; the sense of responsibility and blameworthiness that filled her; her remembrance of Anna's sacrifice for Dan the night she saved his life; her dread of what they might see or hear—those were feelings too deep for words. So, too, was her agony of joy and relief when at last, almost by a miracle, they came on her lying in a linhay down a lane they had very nearly overlooked in the darkness.
How she had wandered there no one would ever know, and Anna could never tell. She must have doubled back when she found she had taken the wrong road, and then, in her fright and confusion, have gone round, and up and down, until she had lost herself far more effectually than if she had tried to. That she had met no one to ask her way of was not wonderful on such a night and in a neighbourhood where there were only half a dozen cottages altogether, and at long distances apart.
She had recognized Kitty and Jabez when they roused her, but in her relief had had a fit of hysterics which frightened them both nearly out of their wits, and then had fainted.