“Tory, is it well with you and Miss Frean?” he called out. “I have been worrying about you all night and got up at daylight to come and see.”
He was nearer now and Tory smiled happily upon him.
“I was under the impression I was becoming an old man, Tory dear,” he remarked as he put his arm about her. “Now I am not so sure. At first I thought I never would be able to make the long walk out here. There was no other way at present and I was determined to come. You see, you borrowed my horse and sleigh for your pilgrimage yesterday afternoon.”
“Yes, I know, I am sorry—no, I am not,” Tory contradicted herself. “I really don’t know what I am saying. What would you think if I tell you that I spent the entire night alone in the House in the Woods? Memory Frean was away when I arrived and I stayed on, thinking she would return each moment. Then night and the storm——”
“And Memory Frean did not return home?” Mr. Fenton inquired, with more anxiety in his manner and tone than Tory had suffered.
Shaking her head, she was attempting to give her own version of the situation, when the Emperor, whom they had almost forgotten, flung himself upon them in a perfect fury of emotional excitement.
Mr. Fenton at once understood his appeal.
“Some one is lost in the snow. How can we manage, Tory?” he asked a little helplessly. Immediately the girl braced herself to meet the conditions intelligently. Her training as a Girl Scout counted in such moments of emergency.
“After all, there is the horse and sleigh! I had completely forgotten!” she answered. “If they have survived the night as well as I have, we can drive slowly, following the Emperor. If anyone has been overcome by the snowstorm, there is a chance we could bring him to the House in the Woods.”