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 hotel who had just been down to the station had mentioned meeting the _chauffeur_ in very smart clothes (quite different from when he had been with the ladies) going down the hill towards Santa Margherita, Sir Evelyn Haines' house, where there was a big reception on.