Chapter 15

THE SEALED PACKET

“Is this Miss Strong?”

Jane, her face blanching, held the receiver in wavering hands for a moment before she could muster courage to answer. She had recognized Frederic Hoff’s voice speaking. What could he want with her now?

“It is Miss Strong,” she managed to answer.

“This is Frederic Hoff. May I come in for a moment? It is most important.”

Again Jane hesitated. Frederic was the last person in the world she felt like seeing just at this moment. Only five minutes before she had arrived home from Chief Fleck’s office. She was under orders to hold herself in readiness to start immediately for the scene of yesterday’s accident. That this trip, unless their plans miscarried, would inevitably result in the exposure and disgrace of both the Hoffs she felt morally certain. To face on friendly terms the man whose downfall she was plotting, the man who only a few hours before had told her that he loved her, seemed a task far beyond her endurance, a situation too tragic for her to cope with.

Duty, her duty to her country, her honor, her patriotism, her affection for her soldier brother, all bade her mask her feelings and seek one more opportunity of leading Hoff to betray himself in conversation if that were possible. Yet, to her own amazement and horror, her heart protested vigorously against such action. Harassed as she was by conflicting emotions, worn out by the trying experiences that had been hers the last few days, she realized at last that she was really in love with Hoff. The throb of joy that she had experienced at the sound of his voice, the thrill that came to her each time she saw him, the delight she found in his presence, the fact that despite all the circumstances, she wanted to be near him, to be with him, convinced her against her will and judgment that her heart was his. In vain she marshalled the damning facts against him. She tried to remember only the expression of murderous hate she had seen on his face the night that her predecessor, the other K-19, had been murdered. She tried to think of him only as a treacherous spy, an enemy of her country forever plotting to destroy Americans, yet she could not. However base and treacherous and low her reason told her Frederic Hoff must be, her refractory heart persisted in beating faster at the prospect of his coming.

Hitherto not much given to self-analysis, she now found herself wondering at herself. What could be the matter with her? Why must she love this rascal? Why could she not fall in love with some decent, clean, patriotic young American, with some man like Thomas Dean? Chauffeur though he was now pretending to be, she knew that he was a college man, well-bred, and traveled. She knew, too, that Dean was in love with her. For him she had a sincere liking, great admiration even, and toward him now she was experiencing that feeling of sympathy a woman always has for the man she cannot love. But her feeling toward Dean, she classified as only that of friendship, nothing at all like the passionate affection that was rapidly drawing her closer and closer to Hoff.

Dared she see him now? Might not her love for him overcome her high desire to be of service to her country? Might she not be led by her unruly heart into betraying to him the fact that he was in the most imminent peril?

Yet she must see him, she told herself. Perhaps this very day he might be arrested and imprisoned. She might never again have the opportunity of seeing him alone and of talking with him. Into her troubled brain came a daring thought. Perhaps it was not too late, even yet, to turn him from his evil course. Was there, she wishfully wondered, any possibility of her leading him, through his love for her, to forsake his comrades, even to betray them? No, she admitted to herself, that was a preposterous idea. He was too dominating, too forceful, too determined, to be influenced to anything against his will.

“May I come in, please?” he kept insisting over the ’phone.

“Only for a minute,” she answered tremulously. “I’m going out soon. I have an engagement.”

“I’ll come right over. I will not keep you long.”

As she awaited his arrival, subconsciously desirous of looking her best in his presence, she stopped almost mechanically before her mirror to adjust her hair, letting him wait for her for a few minutes.

He sprang forward to meet her as she entered the room where he was, his face beaming with delight at the sight of her.

“Jane,” he cried, with a volume of meaning in the monosyllable, as seizing her hand, he held it tightly and gazed earnestly into her face.

Bravely she tried to meet his gaze, to read in his face if she could the object of his unexpected visit, but her eyes fell before his, and the hot blood surged into her cheeks. Within her raged a desperate battle between her head and heart. Mingled with her unwelcome quickening of the pulse at his approach and admiration for his audacity in coming to her when he must know that she knew what he was, there was also an overwhelming sense of futile rage that he, a scheming German plotter, dared intrude his presence into an American home.

“I’m glad to see you appear no worse for your accident,” he said, releasing her hand at last. “You got home all right, without attracting any one’s notice?”

“Oh, yes,” she answered, trying to make her reply seem wholly indifferent and disinterested.

“Your chauffeur is all right, too,” he went on. “I telephoned this morning. He had already left the doctor’s. There’s nothing more the matter with him than a broken arm and a scalp wound. That’s fortunate, isn’t it?”

“Very fortunate,” she admitted.

All at once as they stood there there seemed to have arisen between them an invisible, impenetrable barrier. They faced each other wordlessly, each embarrassed by the knowledge of the secret gulf that was between them. Hoff was the first to recover from it.

“Come,” he said, “sit down. There is something I wish to say to you,—something of the utmost importance, Jane.”

Still struggling with her emotions, Jane allowed him to place a chair for her and seated herself, striving all the while to crush back into her heart the warmth of feeling toward him that always overwhelmed her in his presence, endeavoring to present to him a mask of cold indifference. Yet her curiosity, as well as her affections, had been greatly stirred by his remark. What was it that he was about to say to her? Did he intend, in spite of the insurmountable obstacles between them, dared he, ask her to marry him? Tremblingly she waited for what he had to say.

“Jane,” he said, “you know that I love you. I am confident, too, that you love me.”

“I don’t love you,” she forced her unwilling lips to say. “I can’t. When our country is at war, when she needs men, brave men, how could any true American girl love any man who stayed at home, who idled about the hotels, who—”

“Girl,” his voice grew suddenly stern and commanding, softening a little as he repeated her name, “Jane, dear, let me finish. I love you. There are grave reasons—all-important reasons—why I may not now ask you to be my wife.”

Illustration: She could not bring herself to tell him, the man she loved, the thing she knew he was.

“I never could be your wife,” she cried desperately, “the wife of a—”

The word died in her throat. She could not bring herself to tell him, the man she loved, the thing she knew he was.

“My Jane,” he said, wholly unheeding her impassioned protest, “you know little yet of what life means in this great world of ours. You, here in your parents’ home, sheltered, protected, inexperienced, have not the knowledge nor the means of judging me. You must take me on faith, on the faith of your love for me. For a woman, life holds but two great treasures, two loves—her husband’s and her children’s. With a man it is different. Love is his, too, but there is something more, something bigger—duty. Here in your country—”

Even in her distress she caught his phrase “here in _your_ country” and turned ghastly white. Always before in talking with her he had spoken of himself as an American. Did he realize, she wondered, that he had at last betrayed himself to her? Was he about to strip the mask from himself and his activities at last, and in the face of it all expect her, Jane Strong, to admit that she loved him?

“Here in your country,” he went on placidly, “women forced by economic conditions have been driven from home into business, into politics, into office-holding, even into war activities. Longing for the clinging arms of little children they are striving to forget in assuming some part in the affairs that belong properly to men. But to the true woman love must ever mean more than duty, more than country. Those are words for men. A woman, if she would find happiness, must follow her heart, must forsake all for the man she loves. A woman’s duty is only to the man she loves, just as a man’s duty is to be true to himself, to his country.”

“But,” she cried, “you told me you were American, that you were born here?”

“Jane,” he persisted, with an impatient gesture, “we will not discuss that now. I love you. You must trust me in spite of everything. I know you will. You must. I can answer no questions. I can make no explanations. I can only say I love you. That must suffice.”

“No, no,” she protested, almost sobbing.

“I came here to-day,” he went on calmly, “to ask a favor of you.”

“A favor,” she cried.

Calming herself she forced herself to look into his face. There was something so monstrously unbelievable about his audacity that she could hardly believe her ears. What sort of a credulous stupid creature was he, she angrily asked herself, that in one breath he could all but confess to her that he was a spy and in the next beseech her to do him a favor. Yet there came to her now a remembrance of her duty to her country. She felt that she must mask her feelings toward him, that if she was to be of service she must endeavor bravely to lead him on. She must try to induce him to confide in her. Hard as her task might be, what was it compared to the work her brother and those other brave American boys had undertaken facing the fire of death-dealing guns, facing the terrible gas attacks, living for days and weeks in those terrible trenches? Reinforced by a sense of duty, she made a pitiable effort at cordiality as she asked:

“What is it you wish of me?”

From one of his pockets he had brought forth a small packet which he held out to her. In spite of her agitation she forced herself to study it observingly, making note that it was tied with strong cord and sealed in several places with red wax. Curiously, too, she noted that on it was written her own name.

“Jane,” said Hoff, “to-night I am going away. I may be absent for only a day or two if all goes well, but it is possible I may never come back,—may never be able to see you again.”

She caught her breath sharply. There was the solemnity of finality in his tones. Where was he going? What might happen to him? She realized that the journey he was about to make was in connection with the plot that she and Chief Fleck were seeking to uncover. Evidently he anticipated peril in what he was about to undertake. Suppose he should be trapped in the commission of some act inimical to America’s welfare? What would happen to him? He would be arrested, of course. More than likely he would be sent to prison. He might even be shot as a spy. What if she were the one responsible for his meeting a disgraceful death? How could she go on with it? She must warn him. She must try to persuade him to give up his plans. She tried hard to steady herself, to think calmly. She must listen to every word he was saying and try to remember it.

“This little packet is for you,” he went on. “I want you to keep it safely. In case anything happens, in the event that within one month I have not returned and you have heard nothing of me, I wish you to open it and keep what it contains. Promise me that you will do what I ask.”

In a panic of indecision she got up from her chair, trying to frame a score of questions, but none of them succeeded in passing the barrier of her trembling lips.

“Promise me,” he said softly yet impellingly, as he placed the little packet in her hand and closed her fingers over it.

“I promise,” she whispered, hardly knowing what she said.

Quickly he caught her in his powerful arms. For just a second he held her there, his face close to hers, his blue eyes burning into hers with a steady inscrutable gaze as if he was trying to read in them the love her lips had refused to speak.

Then, so quickly that it was all over before she quite realized what had happened, he had kissed her passionately full on the lips and was gone.

Overcome with the lassitude which follows emotional crises, trembling in every limb, weak as from a long illness, the girl sank back into a chair, still clutching in her hand the sealed packet Hoff had entrusted to her. Minute after minute she sat there with staring eyes, with heart beating madly, with her whole body racked with the torment of her thoughts.

Slowly she lifted the packet and turned it over and over, wondering what it could possibly contain, questioning herself as to what could have been Frederic Hoff’s motive in entrusting it to her. Was there, she wondered, under those seals, some evidence of his guilt and treachery that he had not dared to leave behind him? He must have known that she suspected him and was seeking to entrap him. Had he, knowing all this, but sensing the love for him that he had kindled in her, taken advantage of it and extorted from her her promise to keep it safe?

Wherein lay her duty now? More than ever she was certain that Frederic Hoff was on some hazardous mission for the enemy. He had all but admitted his nationality to her. Her own country’s welfare demanded that the Hoffs’ plans should be discovered and thwarted. Should she, or should she not open the package? Possibly it contained some secret code, some clue to the dastardly activities in which he and his uncle were engaged.

But her heart rebelled. She recalled what he had said, that she must take him on trust. The memory of his burning kiss, of that last earnest look he had given her, refused to be forgotten. Whatever he was, however base the work in which he was engaged, she knew down deep in her heart that Frederic Hoff had been earnestly sincere when he had said that he loved her.

As she debated with herself what she ought to do, the telephone rang again. It was Chief Fleck.

“Can you meet me at the 110th Street subway station in half an hour?” he asked. “I’ll be waiting in my car. Arrange it, if you can without arousing your family’s suspicion, to be away all night.”

“I will be there,” she answered.

As she turned away from the telephone with sudden resolve she thrust the sealed packet, still unopened, into the bosom of her gown.

“I promised him,” she said almost fiercely. “I’ll keep my promise. That much at least I owe our love.”