Stunned though she still was a flush crept into Jane’s cheeks at the
unexpected term of endearment, though she still kept her eyes closed.
Gently he laid her back on the turf and hastened to the automobile,
returning with a flask which he held to her lips. Slowly Jane opened
her eyes.
“Thank God,” he cried. “Jane dear, tell me you are not hurt.”
For a moment she lay there, staring wonderingly at him as he bent over
her imploringly, the tenderest of anxiety showing in every line of his
face. Unprotestingly she let him slip his strong arm once more under
her head. In her dazed brain there was a strange conflict of peculiar
emotions. He was a German, a spy,—she hated him, and yet it was
wonderfully comforting to her to have him there. Under other
circumstances she could have loved him. He was so handsome, so
masterful and so kind, too. He cared for her. Had he not called her
“Jane, dear” in his amazement at finding her lying there? But she must
not let herself think of him in that way. It was her duty, her sacred
duty to trap him, to thwart his nefarious plans against her country.
She must do her duty just as her soldier brother was doing his in far
away France.
Still supported by Hoff’s arms she sat up, trying to collect her
thoughts and gingerly testing the movement of her arms and limbs.
“Tell me,” he cried again, “Jane, dear, are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so,” she managed to say.
With his assistance she got up on her feet and walked uncertainly to
the car, shuddering as she looked at Dean’s crumpled senseless body.
“Your friend,” said Hoff, as he placed her in the forward seat and
wrapped a rug about her, “I am afraid, is badly hurt.”
“It’s our chauffeur, Thomas Dean,” she explained confusedly.
She had been wondering what she could say to Frederic to account for
her presence there. It was unconventional at least for a girl to be
motorcycling about the country dressed in man’s clothes with a
chauffeur. Hoff must surely realize now that she had been shadowing
him. She felt almost certain that he had known it from the very first,
since that afternoon when he had overheard her telephoning about the
“fifth book.” Yet never by word or manner had he betrayed the fact that
he suspected her. Beyond his customary reserve in speaking about
himself or his activities, there was nothing to indicate that he knew
anything yet. Whatever she told him now she must be careful not to
betray her mission. Perhaps even in spite of all that had happened she
still might be able to aid Chief Fleck in trapping them.
But did she really want to trap Frederic Hoff? Had Thomas Dean’s bitter
charge that she was trying to protect him been true? Frederic Hoff
loved her. She, yes—she had to admit it to herself—she was beginning to
love him. Could she go on with it?
Hoff had been busy lifting the unconscious Dean into the tonneau. As
she watched him as he lifted up the body unaided she was conscious of
admiration of his great strength.
“Will he die?” she whispered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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