what duplicity her work for the government was leading her. She had
pledged her word to Chief Fleck that she would keep her activities an
absolute secret even from her parents. Already she was deceiving them,
bringing into the household an employee who really was a detective, a
spy. She was tempted to tell her father, at least, what she was doing.
He, she knew, was filled with a high spirit of patriotism. While he
might not wholly approve of what she herself was doing she might be able
to convince him of the necessity of it. If she could only tell him, her
conscience would not trouble her, but there was her promise--her sacred
promise; she couldn't break that.

While with troubled mind she debated with herself between her duty to
her parents and her duty to her country, one of the maids came in with a
box of flowers for her.

Eagerly she cut the string and opened the box. Chief Fleck especially
wanted her to cultivate young Hoff's acquaintance. If her suspicion as
to the sender were correct, she could feel that she had made an
auspicious beginning.

In a tremor of excitement she snatched off the lid of the box and tore
out the accompanying card from its envelope.

"Mr. Frederic Johann Hoff," it read, "in appreciation of a most
profitable afternoon."

Wondering at the peculiar sentiment of the card she tore off the
enclosing tissue paper from the flowers. Orchids, wonderful, delicately
tinted orchids, nestled in a sheaf of feathery green fern--five of them.

"Five orchids--the fifth book--a profitable afternoon."

Jane felt sure now she had betrayed the government's watchers to at
least one of the watched.

CHAPTER VII

THE WOMAN ON THE ROOF

It is amazing how much information on any given subject any one--even a
wholly inexperienced person like Jane Strong--can acquire within a few
days when one's mind is set resolutely to the task. It is much more
amazing how much one can learn when aided and abetted by an experienced
chauffeur, or more properly speaking a mysterious and cultured secret
service operative, masquerading as an automobile driver.

Who Thomas Dean was, why he was in the secret service, and what his real
name was, were questions that kept perpetually puzzling Jane. In the
presence of her father and mother, so skilful an actor was he that it
was hard to believe him anything but what he appeared to be, a
respectful, intelligent and prompt young man who knew the traffic
regulations and the ana