"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 obstacl