To prolong the questioning, Jane felt, would be only to arouse suspicion, and reluctantly she allowed old Lena to precede her to the elevator, anticipating her, however, in ringing the bell, pressing the button four times as Dean had directed.  As they descended together she was almost in a panic.  How long had she kept the laundress on the roof?  She really had no idea.  She had been so absorbed in her new discovery she had given no thought to the time.  For all she knew she might have been there only five minutes.  Had Dean had time to finish his work?

Almost frenzied with anxiety, wondering if it were too soon, she moved forward in the car so as to obstruct old Lena’s view through the door as it opened.  One glance showed her the Hoff door now tightly closed, and she thought she heard the door of her own apartment just closing.  Suddenly she remembered that she had gone up on the roof without a key.  It would be a pretty pass if Dean were still in the Hoff apartment and she couldn’t get into her own.

All in a tremble she pressed the button of her own door, waiting, however, to see that the laundress was out of the hall.  It was Dean who opened the door, and she all but fainted in his arms as she saw that he was back in safety.

“It’s done,” he cried gleefully, as he caught her and drew her within, closing the door carefully behind her.  “I just finished my work as you came down.”

Great drops of perspiration still stood on his forehead and he was breathing rapidly.

“Why, what’s the matter?” he cried, noticing for the first time Jane’s perturbation.  “Was it too much for you?  What happened?”

“Put this down quick, quick,” gasped Jane, “Red—­two large—­one small—­one large—­one small—­and then—­red—­two small—­one large—­three small—­two large.”

Wonderingly he complied, jotting down what she told him in his notebook, and turning to ask her what it meant, discovered that she had fainted.

CHAPTER VIII

THE LISTENING EAR

“I don’t know what is the matter with Jane,” sighed Mrs. Strong a few days after the employment of the new chauffeur.

“She’s not ill, is she?” responded her husband.  “I never saw her looking more fit.”

“She looks all right,” said her mother.  “It is the peculiar way she is acting that bothers me.  She spends hours and hours moping in her room, and then there are times when she takes notions of going out and is positively insistent that she must have the car.”

“Maybe she’s in love,” suggested Mr. Strong, resorting to the common masculine suspicion.

“With whom?” retorted his wife indignantly.  “I don’t believe there is an eligible man under forty in all New York.  None of the men are thinking about marriage these days.  They all want to go to France, even the married ones.  I believe you’d go yourself if you were a few years younger.”