“I could stand it no longer. You will think me mad. I mean to find him!”
“But how—-where?” I demanded in bewilderment.
“That’s what I must discover here.”
“In Venice!”
“Somebody must know! Oh, I see what you think—I am out of my head.... Perhaps I am! Sitting there in the house day after day thinking, thinking—and the poor boy was so miserable that last morning—he was too sick.”
“Surely you must have some plan?”
“An officer on the train last night—a major going up there to join his regiment—he was very kind to me, lent me his coat to keep me warm, it was so cold. He is a well-known doctor in Rome. Here, I have his card in my sack somewhere.... He says it’s a matter of hours now before they begin.”
“Well,” I said, in a pause, hoping to bring the signora’s mind back to the starting-point. “What has the major to do with your finding Enrico?”
“He told me to inquire at Mestre or here where Enrico’s train had been sent.... They wouldn’t tell me anything at the railroad station in Mestre. So I must find out here,” she ended inconsequentially.
“Here in Venice? But they won’t tell you a thing even if they know. You had a better chance in Rome.”