“She must be on ahead,” said Kitty, anxious to make peace.  “Only I didn’t think she had had time to get so far.”

“Perhaps some one has given her a lift,” said Dan, with sudden hope.  “Anna is sharp enough to take or to ask for one if she had the chance.  She knows it is a tight pack for us all to get in this cart at once, and she would think Mokus would behave as badly going home as he did on the way out.”

This all seemed to them so likely, that they drove on again gaily, their minds quite easy about her; all except Betty, who persisted in gazing back at the tors as long as they were in view, in the hope of seeing a signal of distress.  Mokus stepped out at a pace that the carrots had never roused him to on the outward journey, yet darkness had come on before they reached Gorlay.

“Isn’t it like old times,” sighed Betty happily, “driving through the dark and the wet, and then reaching home, and changing and having a jolly tea by the fire, and there will be no Aunt Pike, and we will be able to stay up as late as we like—­”

“But there will be Anna,” said Tony.  “It won’t be quite the same.”

But, alas, there was no Anna, and her absence on this particular occasion did much more to upset their evening than her presence would have done.  In answer to their inquiries as to when and how she got back, they were told that she had not got back at all.  No one had seen her, and a dreadful conviction began to steal over them that she would not come—­that, in fact, she was lost, and probably, as Betty had suggested, wandering about those dangerous tors, frightened nearly out of her senses.  What was to be done?  At first they were for waiting; but then, as the rain continued to stream down, and the wind to blow gustily, they felt that it was no time for delay.  Something must be done, and done quickly.

“Oh, if only father were home!” cried Kitty despairingly.  But unfortunately Dr. Trenire was in Plymouth on business, and would certainly not be home that night.

Dan sprang up, and began to put on his boots and leggings.  “I am going back there again,” he announced.  “It is only three miles or so, and I can walk it in an hour.”

“But you can’t go alone.”

“Yes, I can; and I can get people out there to help me search, and if I find her I’ll get some one to drive us home;” and flinging on his coat and cap, he was rushing out of the house before they realized what he was doing.

“But, Dan,” Kitty called after him, “which way are you going?”

“The same, of course.  There is but one—­at least only one that Anna knows,” he called back, and he raced off into the darkness before any one could say another word.

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?”