'Not much, when she is with him, as I said before,' responded the _blasé_ baronet. 'We'll soon find out. Like the conspirators in a burlesque, who turn up the collars of their coats, we must say, "Let us dissemble!"' What their precise plans were they perhaps scarcely knew, but half-past ten was announced as the time when, as the programme had it, the curtain was to rise on the _Rideau de Séparation de la Scène, et commencement de la Kermesse_, when the stage appeared with a landscape and busy groups in peasant costume, showing the whole business of a Flemish fair; the dancing ceased, and an immediate rush towards the proscenium took place from all parts of the saloon, the refreshment-rooms, and adjacent passages. The Belgians are not famous for their politeness, and many of those present on this occasion were of the bourgeois class; thus when the curtain rose there was instantly a rough, unceremonious, and furious crowding towards the proscenium, and in the crush the hand of Alison was torn from the arm of Cadbury, and they were hopelessly separated by a crowd of more than a thousand persons, tightly wedged together. So far were they apart that he totally failed to see anything of her or where she was, and nearly an hour elapsed before the follies of the Kermesse were over, and a resumption of the dancing dispersed the crowd about the greater space of the saloon. Immediately on this taking place, Cadbury began a search on every hand, amid all the groups and in all the adjacent rooms and corridors--even between the wings of the now open stage--for Alison, but she was nowhere to be seen. 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.