A suppressed sob at his side caused Fleck to turn quickly and lay his finger on the trigger of his revolver.  There, close beside him, listening to all that had been said, was Jane.  Left alone in the darkness she had found it impossible to obey the chief’s orders and remain where she was.  Every little sound about her had carried new terrors to her heart.  Hitherto she had not felt afraid, but the solitude filled her mind with wild imaginings.  She was seized, too, by an irresistible desire to know what part Frederic was playing in this drama of the dark.  Was his life in peril?  Were Fleck and Carter now gathering evidence that would bring about his conviction, perhaps his shameful death?  She must know what was happening.  Quietly she had stolen up to peer through the window.

Fleck, as he recognized her, with an angry gesture of warning to be silent, turned back to hear what Otto was saying.

“—­you, Frederic, have the glory of leading the expedition, of bombing that damned Wall Street which alone has kept Germany from winning her well-deserved victory.  You will destroy their foolish skyscrapers, their banks, their business buildings.  Your work will end this way.  You will strike terror into the cowardly hearts of these American bankers whose greed for money has led them to interfere with our great nation’s rightful ambition.  You shall show them that their ocean is no protection, that the iron hand of our Kaiser is far-reaching.  Do your work well, and they will be on their knees begging us for peace.”

“God helping me,” said Frederic, “I will not fail in my duty to my country.”

There was something magnificent in his manner as he spoke, something almost regal, and Fleck regarded him with a puzzled air.  Who was he, this man who had been sent out from Germany on this mission—­this man to whom even old Otto paid deference?  Despite the assurance with which he had spoken Fleck had observed in Frederic an uneasiness, a watchfulness, that none of the others seemed to exhibit.  He had the appearance of alertly listening, listening, for what?  Fleck’s first thought was that he might have overheard the little cry that Jane had inadvertently given, but he quickly dismissed this theory.  If Frederic had heard that sound it would have alarmed him, and the look in his eyes now was one of expectancy rather than of fear.

Jane, too, was puzzled and distressed.  With trembling hands she clutched at the sill of the window for support as she heard Frederic assent to old Otto’s plans for him.  Her estimate of his character made it seem incredible that he would willingly lend himself to this work of wholesale murder, yet she could no longer doubt the evidence of her own ears.  With overwhelming force it came to her that this man who so readily agreed to such bloody, dastardly work as this, must undoubtedly be also the murderer of that K-19 whose body had been found just around the corner from her home.  Bitterly she reproached herself that she had allowed herself to care for him.  Shamedly she confessed to herself that she still loved him—­even now.