But did she really want to trap Frederic Hoff?  Had Thomas Dean’s bitter charge that she was trying to protect him been true?  Frederic Hoff loved her.  She, yes—­she had to admit it to herself—­she was beginning to love him.  Could she go on with it?

Hoff had been busy lifting the unconscious Dean into the tonneau.  As she watched him as he lifted up the body unaided she was conscious of admiration of his great strength.

“Will he die?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” he answered.  “He is badly hurt.  We must get him to a doctor at once.”

He stopped a moment longer to examine the car.  Fortunately the glancing blow that it had struck the motorcycle had done no more damage than shatter one of the lamps and bend the mud guard.  Soon they were moving rapidly in the direction of New York.

“I think,” said Hoff, “we had better leave him in the care of the first doctor we come to.  We can say that he is an injured motorcyclist we found lying in the road.”

“And me?” asked Jane, almost fearfully.

“I’ll take you back to the city with me.”

“No,” she replied, “that won’t do.  I ought to stay by him.  Besides, if I return with you, it will be hard to explain.”

He turned to look inquiringly at her and for a moment drove on in silence.

“There’s nothing more you can do for the man once he is in competent medical hands, except to notify his people.  Is he married?”

“No,” said Jane, “he’s not married.  I can tell his friends.”

“Did your parents know about”—­he hesitated—­“about this trip with the chauffeur?”

Jane blushed guiltily, wondering what he suspected of her.  She hoped that he did not think she had a habit of going off on such journeys with the chauffeur.  Even though the man at her side was officially her enemy she resented being put into a position that would cheapen her in his eyes.

“No,” she replied, “they knew nothing about it.”

Hoff drove on in silence.  She had feared that he might ask her more embarrassing questions, might insist on knowing where she had been going when the accident occurred.  A panic seized her.  What if he should ask her?  What could she tell him?  He had a masterful way about him.  If he took it into his head to make her confess she realized that she would have a struggle to keep from telling him everything.  She made up her mind that she would not, she dare not answer any more questions.

When he spoke again she was relieved to hear a suggestion instead of a query.

“When we have crossed the ferry,” he said, “you can put on a dust coat to hide your costume, and I will send you home in a taxi.  Will that be all right?”

“That will do nicely,” she replied, gratefully conscious that he was endeavoring to plan so that her part in the afternoon’s adventures need not become public.