She obeyed readily the man who asked her to be seated in the limousine.  Arthur would be with her in a minute, he said.  When the door closed and the car started she had an impulse to cry out but next moment controlled it and imagined they were to pick up Mr. Weldon on some corner.

On and on they rolled, and still no evidence of the owner of the limousine.  What could it mean, Louise began to wonder.  Had something happened to Arthur, so that he had been forced to send her home alone?  As the disquieting thought came she tried to speak with the chauffeur, but could not find the tube.  The car was whirling along rapidly; the night seemed very dark, only a few lights twinkled here and there outside.

Suddenly the speed slackened.  There was a momentary pause, and then the machine slowly rolled upon a wooden platform.  A bell clanged, there was a whistle and the sound of revolving water-wheels.  Louise decided they must be upon a ferry-boat, and became alarmed for the first time.

The man in livery now opened the door, as if to reassure her.

“Where are we?  Where is Mr. Weldon?” enquired the girl, almost hysterically.

“He is on the boat, miss, and will be with you shortly now,” replied the man, very respectfully.  “Mr. Weldon is very sorry to have annoyed you, Miss Merrick, but says he will soon explain everything, so that you will understand why he left you.”

With this he quietly closed the door again, although Louise was eager to ask a dozen more questions.  Prominent was the query why they should be on a ferry-boat instead of going directly home.  She knew the hour must be late.

But while these questions were revolving in her mind she still suspected no plot against her liberty.  She must perforce wait for Arthur to explain his queer conduct; so she sat quietly enough in her place awaiting his coming, while the ferry puffed steadily across the river to the Jersey shore.

The stopping of the boat aroused Louise from her reflections.  Arthur not here yet?  Voices were calling outside; vehicles were noisily leaving their positions on the boat to clatter across the platforms.  But there was no sign of Arthur.

Again Louise tried to find the speaking tube.  Then she made an endeavor to open the door, although just then the car started with a jerk that flung her back against the cushions.

The knowledge that she had been grossly deceived by her conductor at last had the effect of arousing the girl to a sense of her danger.  Something must be wrong.  Something was decidedly wrong, and fear crept into her heart.  She pounded on the glass windows with all her strength, and shouted as loudly as she could, but all to no avail.

Swiftly the limousine whirled over the dusky road and either her voice could not be heard through the glass cage in which she was confined or there was no one near who was willing to hear or to rescue her.