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.

VIII

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in a press, or behind a curtain, from which she could not, of course, emerge until the majordomo and his myrmidons had withdrawn.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.