Brent and I stared at the door. I felt panicky. The one waiting for the other to open the door and neither one moving.
For a second, I thought it was just an hallucination. But the door did really swing open slowly and a figure in khaki reached out and pulled us in as though we were two powerless puppets.
“For heaven’s sake!” the figure in khaki was exclaiming. “Where have you been? You both look as though you’ve stepped out of Poe! Say something!”
The moment must come to everyone, sometime, when extreme grief or gladness renders the human tongue speechless. That moment had come to Brent and I.
Some seconds passed before I heard a voice sounding very much like my own saying, “Tom!”
CHAPTER XXIII—STRANGE PARTNERS
All that Brent could find to say was, “This is too much for me!” And he went to the fireplace to thaw out.
After we’d slipped into dry clothes and had something hot to drink we demanded an explanation from Tom.
“Why, I got back here right after you left,” he explained. “In fact, I could hear the echo of the flivver from the woods as I got to the Lodge. I thought you fellows had taken a notion to go to Harkness. In fact, I didn’t think about it again until I saw Brent passing the window. I was reading here alone. That’s why I didn’t bother getting up to open the door. Thought you were old enough to do it yourselves.” He laughed heartily.
“Come on, Tomasso!” Brent pleaded. “Give an account of your wanderings. We deserve to hear it after ours.”