The great throng moved out slowly. Bits of musical criticism came to the girls’ ears. The woman afraid of fire made her voice heard as usual, and impressively asked what chance they would have if the building were burning. Someone else called her attention to the emergency exits, and then Peggy lost the thread of the argument in her interest in a new voice which declared, "I know it’s the girl. I couldn’t be mistaken." The voice was low but curiously intense. Something in its breathless emotion gripped the attention. Peggy turned her head, and found that Priscilla had done the same. The woman who had spoken was just behind them. She and her companion were leaning toward each other with an air of suppressed excitement which impressed Peggy unpleasantly, and it did not relieve her inexplicable sense of apprehension to discover that the eyes of the two were fixed upon Elaine’s slender figure, a little in advance. "Just wait till she turns," said the woman who had spoken before, and at that moment Elaine glanced back, as if to locate her companions in the slow-moving crowd. The smile on her face died away, as she met the fixed stare of two pairs of observant eyes. "There!" Triumph was evident in the woman’s tone. "It is the girl, just as I said. I should know her among a thousand." With loyalty as intuitive as her breathing Peggy pushed forward, intending to place herself at Elaine’s side. Though the woman who had professed to recognize her had said nothing to her discredit there was something beneath her triumphant tone which suggested an unpleasant reason for satisfaction in the discovery. But to overtake Elaine seemed impossible. Her departure suggested a panic-stricken flight. Before her companions had reached the top of the long flight of stairs she had disappeared. "Where do you suppose she’s gone?" Priscilla, pushing after Peggy, asked the question with an intonation whose meaning was unmistakable. Peggy, looking up, saw her own questioning exaggerated into suspicion on the face of the other. "I don’t know." "She must have fairly trampled people underfoot. Say, Peggy, I suppose you heard?" "Ye-es." It was a most reluctant affirmative, but Priscilla was too absorbed in her own thoughts to notice. "It wouldn’t mean anything by itself. But when she sees she’s recognized, and runs away, it looks funny. I wonder if she’ll wait for us?" In the throng at the door of the concert hall, the girls could discover no trace of Elaine. Automobiles glided to the curb as their numbers were called through a megaphone, and the people who block the sidewalks on such occasions, stood in chattering groups, unmindful of the desperate attempts others were making to pass them. But at length the crowd thinned sufficiently for the two girls to assure themselves on the point in question. They looked at each other, and for a moment did not speak. "Well!" Priscilla’s tone was dry. "She isn’t here."