He questioned the waiters, the door-keeper, and other officials, but none had seen any lady, who answered to the description given, leave the hall.
Midnight was past now, and as the bal masqué would last till four in the morning hundreds of more ticket-holders came crowding in, and Cadbury became at last convinced—and with no small alarm—that Alison must have quitted the place, and missing him, or indifferent as to what he might think, had got a voiture and driven home to their hotel.
When he quitted the theatre and got a similar vehicle snow was falling heavily, and when he reached the Hôtel St. Antoine great was his alarm and dismay to find from the concierge and waiters that she had not returned!
Not returned—snow falling and the cathedral bell tolling one in the morning.
Her room was searched; she was evidently not there—not with her father or in any part of the house. No doubt remained of that.
With all his selfishness, Cadbury was dismayed and enraged. Where was she—with whom?
The snow was still falling, and the storm showed no sign of abatement. The vast space of the Place Verte was one sheet of white, across which the lights from the hotel windows and the street lamps cast long lines of radiance, and high in the tall spire jangled the merry carillons.
'Out in a night like this—in a foreign city, more than half the inhabitants of which speak nothing but Flemish, where can she be?' he thought. 'Why does she not make an effort to get back to the hotel?'
He drove back to the Théâtre des Variétés, where the music and the dancing were still in full progress, to repeat his inquiries in vain; when morning dawned the snow had ceased, but there was no appearance of Alison.
'This will kill her father!' was now Cadbury's thought.