“Was there ever anything so provoking!” exclaimed Madame Berger, in a voice denoting great annoyance. “What have I said to him to-night? or rather, what have I not said to him? How vexatious—he must have borrowed a domino from a friend in order to get among us!”
“But,” cried Madame Lustig, in a voice of alarm, “one of us must have been left behind.”
“It must be Crescenz,” cried Hamilton. “I will return to the theatre directly for her.”
“It must be Hildegarde,” cried Crescenz, who stood beside him.
Without uttering a word, he sprang into the carriage, and the coachman drove off. His anxiety was indescribable; in the crowd he had felt the absolute necessity of releasing the arm of one of the sisters, and deceived by the extreme likeness in their figures, had almost forcibly retained Crescenz, who chanced to be at the moment followed by the silent mask, and whom he consequently mistook for her sister.
At the theatre he dismissed the coachman, and began making inquiries. “A black domino alone, separated from a party of friends?” Numbers of black dominoes had been seen—many had been separated from their friends! was the usual answer. At length, a footman who had been lounging at a distance, observed, that about half an hour before, a black domino—a lady, had been stunned by a blow from the pole of a carriage, and had been carried off by another black domino.
“That may have been Hildegarde!” cried Hamilton, in a state of fearful anxiety.
“I think that was the name he called her,” said the man, preparing to walk away.
“He! Who is he?” asked Hamilton.
“I don’t know—he said he lived close by, and that he was a near relation.”