I insisted on our knocking at Carmilla’s door.
Our knocking was unanswered.
It soon became a pounding and an uproar. We shrieked
her name, but all was vain.
We all grew frightened, for the door was locked.
We hurried back, in panic, to my room. There
we rang the bell long and furiously. If my father’s
room had been at that side of the house, we would have
called him up at once to our aid. But, alas!
he was quite out of hearing, and to reach him involved
an excursion for which we none of us had courage.
Servants, however, soon came running up the stairs;
I had got on my dressing gown and slippers meanwhile,
and my companions were already similarly furnished.
Recognizing the voices of the servants on the lobby,
we sallied out together; and having renewed, as fruitlessly,
our summons at Carmilla’s door, I ordered the
men to force the lock. They did so, and we stood,
holding our lights aloft, in the doorway, and so stared
into the room.
We called her by name; but there was still no reply.
We looked round the room. Everything was undisturbed.
It was exactly in the state in which I had left it
on bidding her good night. But Carmilla was gone.
Search
At sight of the room, perfectly undisturbed except
for our violent entrance, we began to cool a little,
and soon recovered our senses sufficiently to dismiss
the men. It had struck Mademoiselle that possibly
Carmilla had been wakened by the uproar at her door,
and in her first panic had jumped from her bed, and
hid herself in a press, or behind a curtain, from
which she could not, of course, emerge until the majordomo
and his myrmidons had withdrawn. We now recommenced
our search, and began to call her name again.
It was all to no purpose. Our perplexity and
agitation increased. We examined the windows,
but they were secured. I implored of Carmilla,
if she had concealed herself, to play this cruel trick
no longer—to come out and to end our anxieties.
It was all useless. I was by this time convinced
that she was not in the room, nor in the dressing room,
the door of which was still locked on this side.
She could not have passed it. I was utterly puzzled.
Had Carmilla discovered one of those secret passages
which the old housekeeper said were known to exist
in the schloss, although the tradition of their exact
situation had been lost? A little time would,
no doubt, explain all—utterly perplexed
as, for the present, we were.
It was past four o’clock, and I preferred passing
the remaining hours of darkness in Madame’s
room. Daylight brought no solution of the difficulty.
The whole household, with my father at its head, was
in a state of agitation next morning. Every part
of the chateau was searched. The grounds were
explored. No trace of the missing lady could be
discovered. The stream was about to be dragged;
my father was in distraction; what a tale to have
to tell the poor girl’s mother on her return.
I, too, was almost beside myself, though my grief
was quite of a different kind.
