“What?”
“She didn’t get home last night. The landlady is sitting up for her, and is terribly frightened.”
“Did you make any inquiries?”
“No, Sir; I came straight here in obedience to your directions.”
“Is that all you know?”
“All.”
“Very well,” said Brandon, calmly, “you may go.”
The man retired. Brandon sat down and buried his head in his hands. Such news as this was sufficient to overwhelm any one. The man knew nothing more than this, that she had not returned home and that the landlady was frightened. In his opinion only one of two things could have happened: either Langhetti had taken her somewhere, or she had been abducted.
A thousand fancies followed one another in quick succession. It was too early as yet to go forth to make inquiries; and he therefore was forced to sit still and form conjectures as to what ought to be done in case his conjecture might be true. Sitting there, he took a rapid survey of all the possibilities of the occasion, and laid his plans accordingly.
Brandon had feared some calamity, and with this fear had arranged to have some one in the house who might give him information. The information which he most dreaded had come; it had come, too, in the midst of a time of triumph, when she had become one of the supreme singers of the age, and had gained all that her warmest admirer might desire for her.