ar. Who can tell?

Poor Lady B. was as weak as a rag, but determined on revenge, and Pa
kept her up on a raw egg in wine. We took the train for Taormina. It was
a strange journey. We four reserved a carriage for ourselves, and Lady
B. asked questions till she was too exhausted to speak. Then she sat
with her eyes shut, and salts to her nose, trying to strengthen herself
for what was to come, while Mr. Payne and I talked in low voices about
people we knew. Sometimes I _intimated_ I knew them, too, and others
still more swell, for I didn't like to seem out of it; and luckily I'd
read a great deal about them in the Society papers, so I was never at a
loss.

Mr. Payne was in communication with the American girl's aunt, who was
partly in his confidence; and he knew from her that they would be at the
San Domenico, at Taormina. It was afternoon when we arrived, and as we
didn't want to waste a moment, we drove past the very house where we
were invited to stay, up to the San Domenico, where the wretched
pretender was to be run to earth. It was a very long, mountainous drive,
and Lady B. was trembling with excitement. She wanted to have it out of
the man what he had done with her son, and, I do believe, if it had been
back in old times, she would have been in a mood to put out his eyes
with red-hot irons, or flay him alive to make him confess. She didn't
say much, but her eyes were bright, and there was such a flush of
excitement on her face that she looked quite pretty and almost young.

At last we got up to the hotel, and had to walk through two courtyards;
for it used to be a monastery, and is very quaintly built. A porter
walked up to see what we wanted, and Mr. Payne asked for Miss Randolph
and Miss Kedison. The man said they had gone out on donkeys for an
excursion up in the mountains to a place called Mola, which we could see
from the hotel, overhanging a precipice. He said they hadn't been gone
long, and probably wouldn't be back for at least two hours. Then Mr.
Payne inquired if their _chauffeur_ who drove their motor-car was
staying at the hotel, and if he had gone with the ladies.

The porter answered that the _chauffeur_ was at another hotel, and that
he had not joined the excursion, but he had seen the ladies off with
their donkeys and guide. When the man began to understand that we were
all more interested in the whereabouts of the _chauffeur_ than of the
mistresses, he added that one of the servants of the hote