Pauline had been a prisoner before, had been through many and desperate dangers, but her heart had never failed her utterly until she felt the pressure of the trunk lid on her bent shoulders and heard the clamping of the locks that bound her in.
She could still hear the voices.
"I'll go down and settle my bill and send up that porter," Wrentz was saying. "Don't let him help with the trunk, except to run the elevator. You're sure your car is at the side entrance—not out in front?"
"Yes."
"I will meet you there."
Pauline had been so carefully bound that she could not stir in the trunk. As she felt it lifted and carried rapidly through the corridor to the hotel elevator she strained with all her might to make a noise —to beat with hands or feet or even with her head, the sides of the receptacle. But it was no use. She was carried through the hotel and out to the side entrance without attracting attention.
She felt the trunk lifted over the men's heads, and the whirring of an automobile told her that she was being placed in the machine.
"Well, you didn't care much for your pet room this time, Mr. Wrentz," smiled the clerk as Wrentz asked for his bill.
"Indeed I did, but a message has called me back to New York."
He paid his bill and hurried out to the big car in the back of which Pauline's trunk had been placed. Springing to the wheel, he ordered his followers in, and they drove away.