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diff --git a/old/68296-0.txt b/old/68296-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6f90875..0000000 --- a/old/68296-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,11576 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ruth of the U. S. A., by Edwin Balmer - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Ruth of the U. S. A. - -Author: Edwin Balmer - -Illustrator: Harold H. Betts - -Release Date: June 12, 2022 [eBook #68296] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at - https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUTH OF THE U. S. A. *** - - - - - -Ruth of the U. S. A. - - - - -[Illustration: Ruth crouched beside Gerry, and shot through the -wreckage at the circling German plane] - - - - -Ruth of the U. S. A. - -By Edwin Balmer - -Illustrated by Harold H. Betts - -CHICAGO - -A. C. McCLURG & CO. - -1919 - - - - -Copyright 1919, A. C. McClurg & Co. - -Copyright 1918, The Tribune Company - -Published March, 1919 - -Copyrighted in Great Britain - -W. F. HALL PRINTING COMPANY, CHICAGO - - - - -TO THE MEMORY OF - -MY FATHER - -AN ENGLISHMAN AND AN AMERICAN - - - - -CONTENTS - - I A Beggar and a Passport - II The Wand of War - III The New Rôle - IV At Mrs. Corliss’ - V “You’re Not Like Anyone Else” - VI “We’re Fighting” - VII “One of Our Own!” - VIII France - IX To Picardy - X The Great Attack - XI The Resistance - XII “How Could This Happen?” - XIII Byrne Arrives - XIV Full Confession - XV Gerry’s Problem - XVI Into Germany - XVII The Road to Lauengratz - XVIII The Message in Cipher - XIX The Underground Railway - XX An Officers’ Prison - XXI The Raid on the Schloss - XXII “The War’s Over” - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - -Ruth crouched beside Gerry, and shot through the wreckage at the -circling German plane - -She looked away, half expecting the sound of the music, and the -roses, and palms, and Gerry Hull would vanish - -Gerry was there at the door of her cell; another man was with -him; a friend - - - - -Transcriber’s Notes: - - 1. As printed, this book omitted words in sentences in about eight - places. This edition of the book retains those sentences as printed - to accurately represent the original publication. - - 2. Otherwise, misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. - Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed. - - 3. Italics in the original are shown bracketed by undersocres in - this publication, _like this_. - - - - -RUTH OF THE U. S. A. - - -CHAPTER I: A BEGGAR AND A PASSPORT - - -It was the day for great destinies. Germany was starving; yet German -armies, stronger and better prepared than ever before, were about to -annihilate the British and the French. Austria, crumbling, was -secretly suing for peace; yet Austria was awaiting only the melting -of snow in the mountain passes before striking for Venice and Padua. -Russia was reorganizing to fight again on the side of the allies; -Russia, prostrate, had become a mere reservoir of manpower for the -Hohenzollerns. The U-boats were beaten; the U-boats were sweeping -the seas. America had half a million men in France; America had only -“symbolical battalions” parading in Paris. - -A thousand lies balanced a thousand denials; the pointer of -credulity swung toward the lies again; and so it swung and swung -with everything uncertain but the one fact which seemed, on this -day, perfectly plain--American effort had collapsed. America not -only had failed to aid her allies during the nine months since she -had entered the war; she seemed to have ceased even to care for -herself. Complete proof of this was that for five days now -industries had been shut down, offices were empty, furnaces cold. - -Upon that particular Tuesday morning, the fifth day of this halt, a -girl named Ruth Alden awoke in an underheated room at an Ontario -Street boarding house--awoke, merely one of the millions of the -inconsiderable in Chicago as yet forbidden any extraordinary -transaction either to her credit or to her debit in the mighty -accounts of the world war. If it be true that tremendous fates -approaching cast their shadows before, she was unconscious of such -shadows as she arose that morning. To be sure, she reminded herself -when she was dressing that this was the day that Gerry Hull was -arriving home from France; and she thought about him a good deal; -but this was only as thousands of other romance-starved girls of -twenty-two or thereabouts, who also were getting up by gaslight in -underheated rooms at that January dawn, were thinking about Gerry -Hull. That was, Ruth would like, if she could, to welcome him home -to his own people and to thank him that day, in the name of his city -and of his country, for what he had done. But this was to her then -merely a wild, unrealizable fantasy. - -What was actual and immediately before her was that Mr. Sam -Hilton--the younger of the Hilton brothers, for whom she was office -manager--had a real estate deal on at his office. He was to be there -at eight o’clock, whether the office was heated or not, and she also -was to be there to draw deeds and releases and so on; for someone -named Cady who was over draft age, but had himself accepted by an -engineer regiment, was sacrificing a fine factory property for a -quick sale and Sam Hilton, who was in class one but still hoped -somehow to avoid being called, was snapping up the bargain. - -So Ruth hurried downtown much as usual upon that cold morning; and -she felt only a little more conscious contempt for Sam Hilton--and -for herself--as she sat beside him from eight until after nine, with -her great coat on and with her hands pulled up in her sleeves to -keep them warm while he schemed and reschemed to make a certain -feature of his deal with the patriotic Cady more favorable to -himself. He had tossed the morning paper upon his desk in front of -him with the columns folded up which displayed Gerry Hull’s picture -in his uniform and which told about Gerry Hull’s arriving that -morning and about his service in France. Thus Ruth knew that Sam -Hilton had been reading about Lieutenant Hull also; and, indeed, -Hilton referred to him when he had made the last correction upon the -contract and was in good humor and ready to put business aside for a -few minutes and be personal. - -“Gerry Hull’s come home today from France, I see. Some fighter, that -boy!” he exclaimed with admiration. “Ain’t he?” - -Ruth gazed at Hilton with wonder. She could have understood a man -like Sam Hilton if he refused to read at all about Gerry Hull; or -she could have understood if, reading, Sam Hilton denied admiration. -But how could a young man know about Lieutenant Hull and admire him -and feel no personal reproach at himself staying safe and satisfied -and out of “it”? - -“Some flier!” he was going on with his enthusiastic praise. “How -many Huns has he got--fourteen?” - -Ruth knew the exact number; but she did not tell him. “Lieutenant -Hull is here under orders and upon special duty,” she said. “They -sent him home or he wouldn’t be away from the front now.” The blood -warmed in her face as she delivered this rebuke gently to Sam -Hilton. He stared at her and the color deepened, staining her clear, -delicate temples and forehead. “They had to send him here to stir us -up.” - -“What’s the matter with us?” Sam Hilton questioned with honest lack -of concern. Her way of mentioning Gerry Hull had not hit him at all; -and he was not seeking any answer to his question. He was watching -Ruth flush and thinking that she was mighty pretty with as much -color as she had now. He liked her in that coat, too; for the collar -of dark fur, though not of good quality, made her youthful face even -more “high class” looking than usual. Sam Hilton spent a great deal -of money on his own clothes without ever achieving the coveted -“class” in his appearance; while this girl, who worked for him and -who had only one outfit that he ever saw, always looked right. She -came of good people, he knew--little town people and not rich, since -she had to work and send money home; but they were “refined.” - -Ruth’s bearing and general appearance had pretty well assured Sam of -this--the graceful way she stood straight and held up her head, the -oval contour of her face as well as the pretty, proud little nose -and chin, sweet and yet self-reliant like her eyes which were blue -and direct and thoughtful looking below brown brows. Her hair was -lighter than her brows and she had a great deal of it; a little wavy -and a marvelous amber in color and in quality. It seemed to take in -the sunlight like amber when she moved past the window and to let -the light become a part of it. Her hands which she thrust from her -sleeves now and clasped in front of her, were small and well shaped, -though strong and capable too. She had altogether so many “refined” -characteristics that it was only to make absolutely certain about -her and her family that Sam had paid someone ten dollars to verify -the information about herself which she had supplied when he had -employed her. This information, fully verified, was that her father, -who was dead, had been an attorney at Onarga, Illinois, where her -mother was living with three younger sisters, the oldest fourteen. -Mrs. Alden took sewing; and since Ruth sent home fifteen dollars a -week out of her twenty-five, the family got along. This fifteen -dollars a week, totaling seven hundred and eighty a year which the -family would continue to need and would expect from Ruth or from -whomever married her, bothered Sam Hilton. But he thought this -morning that she was worth wasting that much for as he watched her -small hands clasping, watched the light upon her hair and the flush -sort of fluttering--now fading, now deepening--on her smooth cheek. -Having banished business from his mind, he was thinking about her so -intently that it did not occur to him that she could be thinking of -anyone else. Sam Hilton could not easily imagine anyone flushing -thus merely because she was dreaming of a boy whom she had never met -and could never meet and who certainly wouldn’t know or care -anything about her. - -“He was hurt a couple of weeks ago,” she said, “or probably he -wouldn’t have left at all.” - -That jolted Sam Hilton. It did not bring him any rebuke; it simply -made him angry that this girl had been dreaming all that time about -Gerry Hull instead of about himself. - -“Was the Lady Agnes hurt too?” he asked. - -“Hurt? No.” - -“Well, she’s come with him.” Sam leaned forward and referred to the -folded newspaper. “‘Lady Agnes Ertyle, the daughter of the late Earl -of Durran who was killed at Ypres in 1915, whose two brothers fell, -one at Jutland on the _Invincible_ and the other at Cambrai,’” he -read aloud, “‘is also in the party.’” He skipped down the column -condensing the following paragraphs: “She’s to stay at his mamma’s -house on Astor Street while in Chicago. She’s twenty-one; her -picture was printed yesterday. Did you see it?” - -This was a direct question; and Ruth had to answer, “Yes.” - -“He’s satisfied with her, I should say; but maybe he’s come home to -look further,” Sam said with his heaviest sarcasm. He straightened, -satisfied that he had brought Ruth back to earth. “Now I’m going -over to see Cady; he’ll sign this as it is, I think.” Sam put the -draft of the contract in his pocket. “He leaves town this noon, so -he has to. I’ll be all clear by twelve. You’re clear for the day -now. Have lunch with me, Miss Alden?” - -Ruth refused him quietly. He often asked her for lunch and she -always refused; so he was used to it. - -“All right. You’re free for the day,” he repeated generously and, -without more ceremony, he hurried off to Cady. - -Ruth waited until he had time to leave the building before she -closed the office and went down the stairs. She stepped out to the -street, only one girl among thousands that morning dismissed from -bleak offices--one of thousands to whom it seemed ignominious that -day, when all the war was going so badly and when Gerry Hull was -arriving from France, to go right back to one’s room and do nothing -more for the war than to knit until it was time to go to bed and -sleep to arise next morning to come down to make out more deeds and -contracts for men like Sam Hilton. - -Had it been a month or two earlier, Ruth again would have made the -rounds of the headquarters where girls gave themselves for real war -work; but now she knew that further effort would be fruitless. -Everyone in Chicago, who possessed authority to select girls for -work in France, knew her registration card by heart--her name, her -age, the fact that she had a high-school education. They were -familiar with the occupations in which she claimed -experience--office assistant; cooking; care of children (had she not -taken care of her sisters?); first aid; can drive motor car; operate -typewriter. Everyone knew that her health was excellent; her sight -and hearing perfect. She would go “anywhere”; she would start “at -any time.” But everyone also knew that answer which truth had -obliged her to write to the challenge, “What persons dependent upon -you, if any?” So everyone knew that though Ruth Alden would give -herself to any work, someone had to find, above her expenses, seven -hundred and eighty dollars a year for her family. - -Accordingly she could think of nothing better to do this morning -than to join the throng of those who were going to Michigan Avenue -and to the building where the British and French party, with which -Gerry Hull was traveling, would be welcomed to the city. Ruth had no -idea of being admitted to the building; she merely stood in the -crowd upon the walk; but close to where she stood, a limousine -halted. A window of the car was down; and suddenly Ruth saw Gerry -Hull right before her. She knew him at once from his picture; he was -tall and active looking, even though sitting quiet in the car; he -was bending forward a bit and the sudden, slight motions of his -straight, lithe shoulders and the quick turn of his head as he gazed -out, told of the vigor and impetuousness which--Ruth knew--were his. - -He had a clear, dark skin; his hair and brows were dark; his eyes, -blue and observant and interested. He had the firm, determined chin -of a fighter; his mouth was pleasant and likable. He was younger -looking than his pictures had made him appear; not younger than his -age, which Ruth knew was twenty-four. Indeed, he looked older than -four and twenty; yet one could not say that he looked two years -older or five or ten; the maturity which war had brought Gerry Hull -was not the sort which one could reckon in years. It made one--at -least it made Ruth--pulse all at once with amazing feeling for him, -with a strange mixture of anger that such a boy must have -experienced that which had so seared his soul, and of pride in him -that he had sought the experience. He was a little excited now at -being home again, Ruth thought, in this city where his grandfather -had made his fortune, where his father had died and where he, -himself, had spent his boyhood; he turned to point out something to -the girl who was seated beside him; so Ruth gazed at her and -recognized her, too. She was Lady Agnes Ertyle, young and slight and -very lovely with her brown hair and gray eyes and fair, English -complexion and straight, pure features. She had something too of -that maturity, not of years, which Gerry Hull had; she was a little -tired and not excited as was he. But for all that, she was beautiful -and very young and not at all a strange creation in spite of her -title and in spite of all that her family--her father and her -brothers and she herself--had done in Belgium and in France. Indeed, -she was only a girl of twenty-two or three. So Ruth quite forgot -herself in the feeling of rebuke which this view of Gerry Hull and -Lady Agnes brought to her. They were not much older or intrinsically -different from herself and they had already done so much; and -she--nothing! - -She was so close to them that they had to observe her; and the -English girl nodded to her friendlily and a little surprised. Gerry -Hull seemed not surprised; but he did not nod; he just gazed back at -her. - -“What ought I be doing?” Ruth heard her voice appealing to them. - -Lady Agnes Ertyle attempted no reply to this extraordinary query; -but Gerry Hull’s eyes were studying her and he seemed, in some way, -to understand her perplexity and dismay. - -“Anyone can trust you to find out!” he replied to her aloud, yet as -if in comment to himself rather than in answer to her. The car moved -and left Ruth with that--with Gerry Hull’s assurance to himself that -she could be trusted to discover what she should do. She did not -completely understand what he meant; for she did not know what he -had been thinking when she suddenly thought out aloud before him and -surprised him into doing the same. Nevertheless this brief encounter -stirred and stimulated her; she could not meekly return to her room -after this; so, when the crowd broke up, she went over to State -Street. - -The wide, wind-swept way, busy and bleak below the towering sheer of -the great department stores, the hotels and office buildings on -either hand seemed to Ruth never so sordid and self-concerned as -upon this morning. Here and there a flag flapped from a rope -stretched across the street or from a pole pointing obliquely to the -sky; but these merely acknowledged formal recognition of a state of -war; they were not symbols of any evident performance of act of -defense. The people who passed either entirely ignored these flags -or noticed them dully, without the slightest show of feeling. Many -of these people, as Ruth knew, must have sons or brothers in the -training camps; a few might possess sons in the regiments already -across the water; but if Ruth observed any of these, she was unable -to distinguish them this morning from the throng of the indifferent -going about their private and petty preoccupations with complete -engrossment. Likewise was she powerless to discriminate those--not -few in number--who mingled freely in the groups passing under the -flags but who gazed up, not with true indifference, but with hotly -hostile reactions. - -The great majority even of the so-called Germans in Chicago were -loyal to America, Ruth knew; but from the many hundred thousand who, -before the American declaration of war, had sympathized with and -supported the cause of the Fatherland, there were thousands now who -had become only more fervent and reckless in their allegiance to -Germany since the United States had joined its enemies--thousands -who put the advantage of the Fatherland above every individual -consideration and who, unable to espouse their cause now openly, -took to clandestine schemes of ugly and treacherous conception. -Thought of them came to Ruth as she passed two men speaking in low -tones to each other, speaking in English but with marked Teutonic -accent; they stared at her sharply and with a different scrutiny -from that which men ordinarily gave when estimating Ruth’s face and -figure. One of them seemed about to speak to her; but, glancing at -the other people on the walk, he instantly reconsidered and passed -by with his companion. Ruth flushed and hurried on down the street -until suddenly she realized that one of the men who had stared at -her, had passed her and was walking ahead of her, glancing back. - -She halted, then, a little excited and undecided what was best to -do. The man went on, evidently not venturing the boldness of -stopping, too; and while Ruth remained undecided, a street beggar -seized the opportunity of offering her his wares. - -This man was a cripple who, in spite of the severe cold of the -morning, was seated on the walk with his crutches before him; he -pretended to be a pencil vendor and displayed in his mittened hand -an open box half full of pencils; and he had a pile of unopened -boxes at his side. He had taken station at that particular spot on -State Street where most people must pass on their way to and from -the chief department stores; but his trade evidently had been so -slack this morning that he felt need of more aggressive mendicancy. -He scrambled a few yards up the walk to where Ruth had halted and, -gazing up at her, he jerked the edge of her coat. - -“Buy a pencil, lady?” - -Ruth looked down at the man, who was very cold and ill-dressed and -pitiful; she took a dime from her purse and proffered it to him. He -gazed up at her gratefully and with keen, questioning eyes; and, -instead of taking a pencil from his open box, he picked up one of -the unopened boxes which he had carried with him. - -“Take a box, lady,” he pleaded, squirming with a painful effort -which struck a pang of pity through Ruth; it made her think, not -alone of his crippled agony, but the pain of the thousands--of the -millions from the battle fields. - -Ruth returned her dime to her purse and took out a dollar bill; the -beggar thrust the mittened fingers of his left hand between his -teeth, jerked off the ragged mitten and grabbed the dollar bill. - -“That pays for two boxes,” he said, gazing again up at Ruth keenly. - -“I’ll take two,” Ruth said, accepting the sale which the man had -forced rather than deciding it herself. - -He selected two boxes from the pile at his side and, glancing at her -face sharply once more, he handed her the boxes and thanked her. She -thrust the boxes into her muff and hurried on. - -When she realized the strangeness of this transaction a few moments -later, it seemed to have been wholly due to the beggar’s having -taken advantage of her excitement after meeting Gerry Hull and her -uneasiness at being followed by the German. She had no use for two -boxes of cheap pencils and she could not afford to give a dollar to -a street cripple who probably was an impostor. She felt that she had -acted quite crazily; now she had to take a North State Street car to -return to her room. - -She had been saving, out of her money which she kept for herself, a -ridiculous little fund to enable her perhaps to take advantage of a -chance to “do” something some day; now because Lieutenant Hull had -spoken kindly to her, she had flung away a dollar. She tried to keep -her thought from her foolishness; and she succeeded in this readily -by reviewing all the slight incident of her meeting with Gerry Hull. -She had known something about him ever since she was a little girl, -and pictures of him--a little boy with his grandfather--and articles -about his grandfather and about him, too, appeared in the Chicago -newspaper which her father read. Ruth could recall her father -telling her about the great Andrew Hull, how he had come to Chicago -as a poor boy and had made himself one of the greatest men in the -industrial life of the nation; how he owned land and city buildings -and great factories and railroads; and the reason that the -newspapers so often printed the picture of the little boy was -because some day he would own them all. - -And Ruth knew that this had come true; and that the little boy, -whose bold, likeable face had looked out upon her from the pictures; -the tall, handsome, athletic and reckless youth who had gone to -school in the East and, later, in England had become the possessor -of great power and wealth in Chicago but instead of being at all -spoiled by it, he was a clean, brave young man--a soldier having -offered himself and having fought in the most perilous of all -services and having fought well; a soldier who was a little flushed -and excited about being home again among his people and who had -spoken friendlily to her. - -Ruth reached her room, only remembering the pencil boxes when she -dropped them from her muff upon her table. The solid sound they -made--not rattling as pencils should--caused her to tear the pasted -paper from about one box. She had bought not even pencils but only -boxes packed with paper. Now she had the cover off and was staring -at the contents. A new fifty dollar bank note was on top. Underneath -that was another; below that, another--others. They made a packet -enclosed in a strip such as banks use and this was denominated -$1,000.00. There were twenty fifty-dollar notes in this packet. - -Ruth lifted it out; she rubbed her eyes and lifted out another -packet labeled one thousand dollars made up of ten bills of one -hundred dollars each; on the bottom were five one hundred dollar -notes, not fastened together. The box held nothing else. - -Her pulses pounded and beat in her head; her hands touching the -money went hot, went cold. This money was real; but her obtaining it -must be a mistake. The box must have been the beggar’s bank which he -had kept beside him; therefore his money had no meaning for her. But -now the cripple’s insistence upon halting her, his keen observation -of her, his slowness at last to make the sale, stirred swift -instincts of doubt. She seized and tore open the other box which she -had bought. - -No pencils in it; nor money. It held printed or engraved papers, -folded and refolded tightly. One huge paper was on top, displaying -bright red stamps and a ribbon and seals. This was an official -government document; a passport to France! The picture of the holder -was pasted upon a corner, stamped with the seal of the United -States; and it was her picture! In strange clothes; but herself! - -For the instant, as things swam before her in her excitement, there -came to Ruth the Cinderella wonder which a girl, who has been really -a little child once, can never quite cease to believe--the wonder of -a wish by magic made true. The pencils in the beggar’s boxes had -been changed by her purchase of them to money for her and a passport -to France. And for this magic, Gerry Hull was in some way -responsible. She had appealed to him; he had spoken to her and -thenceforth all things she touched turned to fairy gold--or better -than gold; American bank notes and a passport to France! - -Then the moment of Ruth, the little girl and the dreamer, was gone; -and Ruth, the business woman competent to earn twenty-five dollars a -week, examined what she held in her hand. As she made out the papers -more clearly, her heart only beat faster and harder; her hands went -moist and trembled and her breath was pent in by presence of the -great challenge which had come to her, which was not fairy at all -but very real and mortal and which put at stake her life and honor -but which offered her something to “do” beyond even her dreams. For -the picture upon the passport was not of her but only of a girl very -much like her; the name, as inscribed in the body of the passport -and as written in hand across the picture and under the seal of the -United States, was not her own but of someone named Cynthia Gail; -and along with the passport was an unattached paper covered with -small, distinct handwriting of a man relating who Cynthia Gail was -and what the recipient of this money and this passport was expected -to do. This paper like the passport was complete and untorn. There -was besides a page of correspondence paper, of good quality, written -upon both sides in the large, free handwriting of a girl--the same -hand which had signed the photograph and the passport, “Cynthia -Gail.” - -Ruth read these papers and she went to her door and locked it, she -went to her window and peered cautiously out. If anyone had followed -her, he was not now in evidence. The old, dilapidated street was -deserted as usual at this time and on such a day except for a -delivery truck speeding past, a woman or two on the way to the car -line, and a few pallid children venturing out in the cold. Listening -for sounds below, Ruth heard no unusual movements; so she drew far -back from the window with the money and with the passport and with -the explanatory paper and the letter which she laid before her and -examined most carefully again. - - - - -CHAPTER II: THE WAND OF WAR - - -The man who had formed the small, distinct characters covering the -paper of instructions had written in English; but while he was quite -familiar with English script, it was evident that he had written -with the deliberate pains of a person who realizes the need of -differentiating his letters from the formation natural to him. That -formation, clearly, was German script. Like everyone else, Ruth knew -German families; and, like many other American girls who had been in -high schools before the outbreak of the war, she had chosen German -for a modern language course. Indeed, she had learned German well -enough so that when confronted by the question on her War -Registration card, _What foreign languages do you read well?_ she -had written, _German_. - -She had no difficulty, therefore, in recognizing from the too broad -tops of the a’s, the too pointed c’s and the loops which twice -crossed the t’s that the writer had been educated first to write -German. He had failed nowhere to carefully and accurately write the -English form of the letters for which the German form was very -different, such as k and r and s; it was only in the characters -where the two scripts were similar that his care had been less. - - You are (he had written) the daughter of Charles Farwell - Gail, a dry-goods merchant of Decatur, Illinois. Your - father and mother--ages 48 and 45--are living; you have one - older brother, Charles, now twenty-six years old who - quarreled with his father four years ago and went away and - has not been heard from. The family believe that he - entered the war in some capacity years ago; if so, he - probably was killed for he was of reckless disposition. - You do not write to him, of course; but in your letters - home you refer to being always on watch for word from - Charles. You were twenty-four years old on November 17. - You have no sisters but one younger brother, Frank, 12 on - the tenth of May, who is a boy scout; inform him of all - boy-scout matters in your letters. Your other immediate - family is a sister of your mother now living with your - parents; she is a widow, Mrs. Howard Grange, maiden name - Cynthia Gifford. You were named for her; she has a chronic - ailment--diabetes. You write to her; you always inquire of - her condition in letters to your parents. Your closest - girl friend is Cora Tresdale, La Salle, Illinois, who was - your roommate at Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass.; you - were both class of 1915; you write to her occasionally. - You recently have been much interested in 2nd Lieutenant - George A. Byrne, from Decatur, now at Camp Grant; he saw - you in Chicago this past Saturday. Probably you are - engaged to him; in any case, your status with him will be - better defined by letter which will arrive for you at the - Hotel Champlain, this city, Room 347. - - It is essential that you at once go to hotel and continue - your identity there. Immediately answer by telegram any - important inquiry for you; immediately answer all letters. - Buy a typewriter of traveling design and do all - correspondence on that, saying that you are taking it up - for convenience. Your signature is on passport; herewith - also a portion of letter with your writing. So far as - known, you do not sign nicknames, except to your father to - whom you are “Thia.” Mail arriving for you, or to arrive - at hotel, together with possessions in room will inform - you of your affairs more fully. So far as now known you - have no intimate friends in Chicago; you are to start - Thursday evening for Hoboken where you report Saturday - morning to Mrs. Donald G. Gresham for work in the - devastated districts in France, where you will observe all - desired matters, particularly in regard to number, - dispositions, personnel, equipment and morale of arriving - American forces; reporting. If and when it proves - impractical to forward proper reports, you will make - report in person, via Switzerland; apply for passport to - Lucerne. - -With this, the connected writing abruptly ended; there was no -signature and no notation except at the bottom of the sheet was an -asterisk referring to an asterisk before the first mention of -“mother.” This note supplied, “Mother’s maiden name, Julia -Trowbridge Gifford,” and also the street address in Decatur. Below -that was the significant addenda: - - Cynthia Gail killed in Sunday night wreck; identification - now extremely improbable; but watch papers for news. No - suspicion yet at home or hotel; _but you must appear at - once and answer any inquiry_. - -This last command, which was a repetition, was emphatically -underlined. The page of the letter in Cynthia Gail’s handwriting was -addressed to her mother and was largely a list of -clothing--chemises, waists, stockings, and other articles--which she -had bought in Chicago and charged to her father’s account at two -department stores. A paragraph confided to her mother her feeling of -insignificance at the little part she might play in the war, though -it had seemed so big before she started away: - - Yet no one knows what lies before one; even I may be - given my great moment to grasp! - -The letter was unfinished; Cynthia Gail evidently had been carrying -it with her to complete and mail later when she was killed. - -Ruth placed it under her pillow with the other paper and the -passport and the money; she unlocked her door and went out, locking -it behind her; descending to the first floor, she obtained the -yesterday’s paper and brought it back to her room. She found readily -the account of a wreck on Sunday evening when a train had crashed -through a street car. It had proved very difficult to identify -certain of the victims; and one had not been identified at all; she -had been described only as a young girl, well dressed, fur toque, -blue coat with dark fur collar. - -The magic of this money and the passport had faded quite away; the -chain of vital, mortal occurrences which had brought them to Ruth -Alden was becoming evident. - -There had been, first of all, an American girl named Cynthia Gail of -Decatur, Illinois, young like Ruth but without responsibilities, -loyal and ardent to play her part in the war. She had applied for -overseas work; the government therefore had investigated her, -approved her and issued her a passport and permitted her to make all -arrangements for the journey to France and for work there. She had -left her home in Decatur and had come alone, probably, to Chicago, -arriving not later than Saturday. She apparently had been alone in -the city on Sunday evening after Lieutenant George Byrne had -returned to Camp Grant; also it was fairly certain that she had no -intimate friends in Chicago as she had been stopping at a hotel. On -Sunday evening she had been on the car which was struck by the -train. - -This much was positive; the next circumstances had more of -conjecture; but Ruth could reason them out. - -Someone among those who first went to the wreck found Cynthia Gail -dead and found her passport upon her. This person might have been a -German agent who was observing her; much more probably he was simply -a German sympathizer who was sufficiently intelligent to appreciate -at once the value of his find. At any rate, someone removed the -passport and letter and other possessions which would identify -Cynthia Gail; and that someone either acted promptly for himself and -for Germany or brought his discoveries to others who acted very -energetically. For they must immediately have got in touch with -people in Decatur who supplied them with the information on the page -of instructions; and they also must have made investigation of -Cynthia Gail’s doings in Chicago. - -The Germans thereupon found that they possessed not merely a -passport but a most valuable post and an identity to use for their -own purposes. If they could at once substitute one of their own -people for Cynthia Gail--before inquiry for Cynthia Gail would be -made or knowledge of her loss arise--this substitute would be able -to proceed to France without serious suspicion; she would be able to -move about with considerable freedom, probably, in the districts of -France where Americans were holding the lines and could gather and -forward information of all sorts of the greatest value to the -Germans. They simply must find a German girl near enough like -Cynthia Gail and clever and courageous enough to forge her -signature, assume her place in her family, and in general play her -rôle. - -It was plain that the Germans who obtained the passport knew of some -German girl upon whom they could depend; but they could not--or did -not dare to attempt to--communicate directly with her. Ruth knew -vaguely that hundreds of Germans, suspected of hostile activities, -silently had disappeared. She knew that the American secret service -constantly was causing the arrest of others and keeping many more -under observation. It was certain, therefore, that communication -between enemy agents in Chicago must have been becoming difficult -and dangerous; moreover, Ruth had read that it was a principle of -the German spy organization to keep its agents ignorant of the -activities of others in the same organization; so it seemed quite -probable that the people who had possession of Cynthia Gail’s -passport knew that there was a German girl in the city who might -play Cynthia’s part but that they could not locate her. Yet they -were obliged to find her, and to do it quickly, so that she could -take up the rôle of Cynthia Gail before inquiries would be made. - -What better way of finding a girl in Chicago than posting yourself -as a beggar on State Street between the great stores? It was indeed -almost certain that if the girl they sought was anywhere in the -city, sooner or later she would pass that spot. Obviously the two -Germans who had mixed with the crowd on State Street also had been -searching for their German confederate; they had mistaken Ruth for -her; and one of them had somehow signaled the beggar to accost her. - -This had come to Ruth, therefore, not because she was chosen by -fate; it simply had happened to her, instead of to another of the -hundreds of girls who had passed down State Street that morning, -because she chanced to possess a certain sort of hair and eyes, -shape of nose and chin, and way of carrying her head not unique at -all but, in fact, very like two other girls--one who had been loyal -and eager as she, but who now lay dead and another girl who had been -sought by enemy agents for their work, but who had not been found -and who, probably, would not now be found by them. - -For, after giving the boxes to Ruth, the German who played the -beggar would not search further; that delivery of the passport and -the orders to her was proof that he believed she was the girl he -sought. She had only to follow the orders given and she would be -accepted by other German agents as one of themselves! She would -pretend to them that she was going as a German spy into France in -order that she could go, an American spy, into Germany! For that was -what her orders read. - -“You will report in person via Switzerland!” they said. - -What a tremendous thing had been given her to do! What risks to run; -what plans to make; what stratagems to scheme and to outwit! Upon -her--her who an hour ago had been among the most futile and -inconsiderable in all the world of war--now might hang the fate of -the great moment if she did not fail, if she dared to do without -regard to herself to the uttermost! She must do it alone, if she was -to do it at all! She could not tell anyone! For the Germans who had -entrusted this to her might be watching her. If she went to the -American Secret Service, the Germans almost surely would know; and -that would end any chance of their continuing to believe her their -agent. No; if she was to do it, she must do it of herself; and she -was going to do it! - -This money, which she recounted, freed her at once from all bonds -here. She speculated, of course, about whose it had been. She was -almost sure it had not been Cynthia Gail’s; for a young girl upon an -honest errand would not have carried so great an amount in cash. No; -Ruth had heard of the lavishness with which the Germans spent money -in America and of the extravagant enterprises they hazarded in the -hope of serving their cause in some way; and she was certain that -this had been German money and that its association with the -passport had not begun until the passport fell into hostile hands. -The money, consequently, was Ruth’s spoil from the enemy; she would -send home two thousand dollars to free her from her obligation to -her family for more than two years while she would keep the -remainder for her personal expenses. - -The passport too was recovered from the enemy; yet it had belonged -to that girl, very like Ruth, who lay dead and unrecognized since -this had been taken from her. There came to Ruth, accordingly, one -of those weak, peacetime shocks of horror at the idea of leaving -that girl to be put away in a nameless grave. As if one more -nameless grave, amid the myriads of the war, made a difference! - -Ruth gazed into the eyes of the girl of the picture; and that girl’s -words, which had seemed only a commonplace of the letter, spoke -articulate with living hope. “Even I may be given my great moment to -grasp!” - -What could she care for a name on her grave? - -“You can’t be thinking of so small and silly a thing for me!” the -girl of the picture seemed to say. “When you and I may save perhaps -a thousand, ten thousand, a million men! I left home to serve; you -know my dreams, for you have dreamed them too; and, more than you, I -had opportunity offered to do. And instead, almost before I had -started, I was killed stupidly and, it seemed for nothing. It almost -happened that--instead of serving--I was about to become the means -of betrayal of our armies. But you came to save me from that; you -came to do for me, and for yourself, more than either of us dreamed -to do. Be sure of me, as I would be sure of you in my place! Save -me, with you, for our great moment! Carry me on!” - -Ruth put the picture down. “We’ll go on together!” she made her -compact with the soul of Cynthia Gail. - -She was glad that, before acting upon her decision, she had no time -to dwell upon the consequences. She must accept her rôle at once or -forever forsake it. Indeed, she might already be too late. She went -to her washbowl and bathed; she redid her hair, more like the girl -in the picture. The dress which she had been wearing was her best -for the street so she put it on again. She put on her hat and coat; -she separated two hundred dollars from the rest of the money and put -it in her purse; the balance, together with the passport and the -page of Cynthia Gail’s letter, she secured in her knitting bag. The -sheet of orders with the information about Cynthia Gail gave her -hesitation. She reread it again carefully; and she was almost -certain that she could remember everything; but, being informed of -so little, she must be certain to have that exact. So she reached -for her leaflet of instructions for knitting helmets, socks, and -sweaters, and she wrote upon the margin, in almost imperceptible -strokes, shorthand curls and dashes, condensing the related facts -about Cynthia Gail. She put this in her bag, destroyed the original -and, taking up her bag, she went out. - -Every few moments as she proceeded down the dun and drab street, in -nowise changed from the half hour before, she pressed the bag -against her side to feel the hardness of the packets pinned in the -bottom; she needed this feelable proof to assure her that this last -half hour had not been all her fantasy but that truly the wand of -war, which she had seen to lift so many out of the drudge of mean, -mercenary tasks, had touched her too. - -She hailed a taxicab as soon as she was out of sight of the boarding -house and directed it to the best downtown store where she bought, -with part of the two hundred dollars, such a fur toque and such a -blue coat with a fur collar as she supposed Cynthia Gail might have -possessed. She had qualms while she was paying for them; she seemed -to be spending a beggar’s money, given her by mistake. She wore the -new toque and the coat, instructing that her old garments be sent, -without name, to the war-relief shop. - -Out upon the street again, the fact that she had spent the money -brought her only exultation; it had begun to commit her by deed, as -well as by determination and had begun to muster her in among those -bound to abandon all advantage--her security, her life--in the great -cause of her country. It had seemed to her, before, the highest and -most wonderful cause for which a people had ever aroused; and now, -as she could begin to think herself serving that cause, what might -happen to her had become the tiniest and meanest consideration. - -She took another taxicab for the Hotel Champlain. She knew this for -a handsome and fashionable hotel on the north side near the lake; -she had never been in such a hotel as a guest. Now she must remember -that she had had a room there since last week and she had been away -from it since Sunday night, visiting, and she had kept the room -rather than go to the trouble of giving it up. When she approached -the hotel, she leaned forward in her seat and glanced at herself in -the little glass fixed in one side of the cab. She saw that she was -not trembling outwardly and that she had good color--too much rather -than too little; and she looked well in the new, expensive coat and -toque. - -When the cab stopped and the hotel doorman came out, she gave him -money to pay the driver and she went at once into the hotel, passing -many people who were sitting about or standing. - -The room-clerk at the desk looked up at her, as a room-clerk gazes -at a good looking and well-dressed girl who is a guest. - -“Key, please,” she said quietly. She had to risk her voice without -knowing how Cynthia Gail had spoken. That was one thing which the -Germans had forgotten to ascertain--or had been unable to -discover--for her. But the clerk noticed nothing strange. - -“Yes, Miss Gail,” he recognized her, and he turned to take the key -out of box 347. “Mail too, Miss Gail?” - -“Please.” - -He handed Ruth three letters, two postmarked Decatur and one -Rockford, and also the yellow envelope of a telegram. He turned back -to the box and fumbled for a card. - -“There was a gentleman here for you ’bout half an hour ago, Miss -Gail,” the clerk recollected. “He waited a while but I guess he’s -gone. He left this card for you.” - -Ruth was holding the letters and also the telegram unopened; she had -not cared to inquire into their contents when in view of others. It -was far safer to wait until she could be alone before investigating -matters which might further confuse her. So she was very glad that -the man who had been “here for her” was not present at that instant; -certainly she required all the advantage which delay and the mail -and the contents of Cynthia Gail’s room could give her. - -She had thought, of course, of the possibility of someone awaiting -her; and she had recognized three contingencies in that case. A man -who called for her might be a friend or a relative of Cynthia Gail; -this, though difficult enough, would be easiest and least dangerous -of all. The man might be a United States agent aware that Cynthia -Gail was dead, that her passport had fallen into hostile hands; he -therefore would have come to take her as an enemy spy with a stolen -passport. The man might be a German agent sent there to aid her or -give her further orders or information, if the Germans still were -satisfied that they had put the passport into proper hands; if they -were not--that is, if they had learned that the beggar had made a -mistake--then the man might be a German who had come to lure her -away to recover the passport and punish her. - -The man’s card, with his name--Mr. Hubert Lennon, engraved in the -middle--told nothing more about him. - -“I will be in my room,” Ruth said to the clerk, when she glanced up -from the card. “If Mr. Lennon returns or anyone else calls, -telephone me.” - -She moved toward the elevator as quickly as possible; but the -room-clerk’s eyes already were attracted toward a number of men -entering from the street. - -“He’s not gone, Miss Gail! Here he is now!” the clerk called. - -Ruth pretended not to hear; but no elevator happened to be waiting -into which she could escape. - -“Here’s the gentleman for you!” a bellboy announced to Ruth so that -she had to turn and face then and there the gentleman who had been -waiting for her. - - - - -CHAPTER III: THE NEW RÔLE - - -The man who advanced from the group which had just entered the -hotel, appeared to be about thirty years old; he was tall and -sparely built and stooped very slightly as though in youth he had -outgrown his strength and had never quite caught up. He had a -prominent nose and a chin which, at first glance, seemed forceful; -but that impression altered at once to a feeling that here was a man -of whom something might have been made but had not. He was not at -all dissolute or unpleasant looking; his mouth was sensitive, almost -shy, with only lines of amiability about it; his eyes, which looked -smaller than they really were because of the thick lenses of his -glasses, were gray and good natured and observant. His hair was -black and turning gray--prematurely beyond doubt. It was chiefly the -grayness of his hair, indeed, which made Ruth suppose him as old as -thirty. He wore a dark overcoat and gray suit--good clothes, so good -that one noticed them last--the kind of clothes which Sam Hilton -always thought he was buying and never procured. He pulled off a -heavy glove to offer a big, boyish hand. - -“How do you do, Cy--Miss Gail?” he greeted her. He was quite sure of -her but doubtful as to use of her given name. - -“Hubert Lennon!” Ruth exclaimed, giving her hand to his grasp--a -nice, pleased, and friendly grasp. She had ventured that, whoever he -was, he had known Cynthia Gail long ago but had not seen her -recently; not for several years, perhaps, when she was so young a -girl that everyone called her Cynthia. Her venture went well. - -She was able to learn from him, without his suspecting that she had -not known, that she had an engagement with him for the afternoon; -they were to go somewhere--she could not well inquire where--for -some event of distinct importance for which she was supposed to be -“ready.” - -“I’m not ready, I’m sorry to say,” Ruth seized swiftly the chance -for fleeing to refuge in “her” room. “I’ve just come in, you know. -But I’ll dress as quickly as I can.” - -“I’ll be right here,” he agreed. - -She stepped into a waiting elevator and drew back into the corner; -two men, who talked together, followed her in and the car started -upwards. If the Germans had sent someone to the hotel to observe her -when she appeared to take the place of Cynthia Gail, that person -pretty clearly was not Hubert Lennon, Ruth thought; but she could -not be sure of these two men. They were usual looking, middle-aged -men of the successful type who gazed at her more than casually; -neither of them called a floor until after Ruth asked for the third; -then the other said, “Fourth,” sharply while the man who remained -silent left the elevator after Ruth. She was conscious that he came -behind her while she followed the room numbers along the hallway -until she found the door of 347; he passed her while she was opening -it. She entered and, putting the key on the inside, she locked -herself in, pressing close to the panel to hear whether the man -returned. But she heard only a rapping at a door farther on; the -man’s voice saying, “I, Adele;” then a woman’s and a child’s voices. - -“Nerves!” Ruth reproached herself. “You have to begin better than -this.” - -She was in a large and well-furnished bedroom; the bed and bureau -and dressing table were set in a sort of alcove, half partitioned -off from the end of the room where was a lounge with a lamp and a -writing desk. These were hotel furniture, of course; the other -articles--the pretty, dainty toilet things upon the dressing table, -the dresses and the suit upon the hangers in the closet, the -nightdress and kimono upon the hooks, the boots on the rack, the -waists, stockings, undergarments, and all the other girl’s things -laid in the drawers--were now, of necessity, Ruth’s. There was a new -steamer trunk upon a low stand beyond the bed; the trunk had been -closed after being unpacked and the key had been left in it. A -small, brown traveling bag--also new--stood on the floor beside it. -Upon the table, beside a couple of books and magazines, was a pile -of department-store packages--evidently Cynthia Gail’s purchases -which she had listed in her letter to her mother. The articles, -having been bought on Saturday, had been delivered on Monday and -therefore had merely been placed in the room. - -Ruth could give these no present concern; she could waste no time -upon examination of the clothes in the closet or in the drawers. She -bent at once before the mirror of the dressing table where Cynthia -Gail had stuck in two kodak pictures and two cards at the edge of -the glass. The pictures were both of the same young man--a tall, -straight, and strongly built boy in officer’s uniform; probably -Lieutenant Byrne, Ruth thought; at least he was not Hubert Lennon; -and the cards in the glass betrayed nothing about him, either; both, -plainly, were “reminder” cards, one having “Sunday, 4:30!” written -triumphantly across it, the other, “Mrs. Malcolm Corliss, Superior -9979.” - -Ruth knew--who in Chicago did not know?--of Mrs. Malcolm Corliss, -particularly since America entered the war. Ruth knew that the -Superior number was a telephone probably in Mrs. Corliss’ big home -on the Lake Shore Drive. Ruth picked up the leather portfolio lying -upon the dressing table; opening it, she faced four portrait -photographs; an alert, able and kindly looking man of about fifty; a -woman a few years younger, not very unlike Ruth’s own mother and -with similarly sweet eyes and a similar abundance of beautiful hair. -These photographs had been but recently taken. The third was several -years old and was of a handsome, vigorous, defiant looking boy of -twenty-one or two; the fourth was of a cunning, bold little youth of -twelve in boy-scout uniform. Ruth had no doubt that these were -Cynthia Gail’s family; she was very glad to have that sight of them; -yet they told her nothing of use in the immediate emergency. Her -hand fell to the drawer of the dresser where, a moment ago, Ruth had -seen a pile of letters; she recognized that she must examine -everything; yet it was easier for her to open first the letters -which had never become quite Cynthia Gail’s--the three letters and -the dispatch which the clerk had given Ruth. - -She opened the telegram first and found it was from her father. She -was thinking of herself, not as Ruth Alden, but as actually being -Cynthia Gail now. It was a great advantage to be able to fancy and -to dream; she _was_ Cynthia Gail; she _must_ be Cynthia henceforth -or she could not continue what she was doing even here alone by -herself; and surely she could not keep up before others unless, in -every relation, she thought of herself as that other girl. - - Letter received; it’s like you, but by all means go ahead; - I’ll back you. Love. - Father. - -That told nothing except that she had, in some recent letter, -suggested an evidently adventurous deviation from her first plan. - -The first letter from Decatur which Cynthia Gail now opened was from -her mother--a sweet, concerned motherly letter of the sort which -that girl, who had been Ruth Alden, well knew and which made her cry -a little. It told absolutely nothing about anyone whom Cynthia might -meet in Chicago except the one line, “I’m very glad that Mrs. -Malcolm Corliss has telephoned to you.” The second letter from -Decatur, written a day earlier than the other, was from her father; -from this Cynthia gained chiefly the information--which the Germans -had not supplied her--that her father had accompanied her to -Chicago, established her at the hotel and then been called back home -by business. He had been “sorry to leave her alone” but of course -she was meeting small risks compared to those she was to run. The -letter from Rockford, which had arrived only that morning, was from -George--that meant George Byrne. She had been engaged to him, it -appeared; but they had quarreled on Sunday; he felt wholly to blame -for it now; he was very, very sorry; he loved her and could not give -her up. Would she not write him, please, as soon as she could bring -herself to? - -The letter was all about themselves--just of her and of him. No one -else at all was mentioned. The letters in the drawer--eight in -number--were all from him; they mentioned, incidentally, many people -but all apparently of Decatur; there was no reference of any sort to -anyone named Hubert or Lennon. - -She returned the letters to their place in the drawer and laid with -them those newly received. The mail, if it gave her small help, at -least had failed to present any immediately difficult problem of its -own. There was apparently no anxiety at home about her; she safely -could delay responding until later in the afternoon; but she could -not much longer delay rejoining Hubert Lennon or sending him some -excuse; and offering excuse, when knowing nothing about the -engagement to which she was committed, was perhaps more dangerous -than boldly appearing where she was expected. The Germans had told -her that they believed she had no close friends in Chicago; and, so -far as she had added to that original information, it seemed -confirmed. - -The telephone bell rang and gave her a jump; it was not the -suddenness of the sound, but the sign that even there when she was -alone a call might make demand which she could not satisfy. She -calmed herself with an effort before lifting the receiver and -replying. - -“Cynthia?” a woman’s voice asked. - -“Yes,” she said. - -“It’s a large afternoon affair, dear,” the voice said easily. “But -quite wartime. I’d wear the yellow dress.” - -“Thank you, I will,” Cynthia said, and the woman hung up. - -That shocked Cynthia back to Ruth again; she stood in the center of -the room, turning about slowly and with muscles pulling with queer, -jerky little tugs. The message had purported to be a friendly -telephone call from some woman who knew her intimately; but Ruth -quickly estimated that that was merely what the message was meant to -appear. For if the woman really were so intimate a friend of Cynthia -Gail, she would not have made so short and casual a conversation -with a girl whom she could not have seen or communicated with since -Sunday. No; it was plain that the Germans again were aiding her; -plain that they had learned--perhaps from Hubert Lennon waiting for -her in the hotel lobby--about her afternoon engagement; plain, too, -that they were ordering her to go. - -A new and beautiful yellow dress, suitable for afternoon wear, was -among the garments in the closet; there was an underskirt and -stockings and everything else. Ruth was Cynthia again as she slipped -quickly out of her street dress, took off shoes and stockings and -redressed completely. She found a hat which evidently was to be worn -with the yellow dress. So completely was she Cynthia now, as she -bent for a final look in the glass, that she did not think that she -looked better than Ruth Alden ever had; she wondered, instead, -whether she looked as well as she should. She found no coat which -seemed distinctly for the afternoon; so she put on the coat which -she had bought. She carried her knitting bag with her as before--it -was quite an advantage to have a receptacle as capacious as a -knitting bag which she could keep with her no matter where she went. -Descending to the ground floor, she found about the same number and -about the same sort of people passing back and forth or lounging in -the lobby. Hubert Lennon was there and he placed himself beside her -as she surrendered her room key. - -“You’re perfectly corking, Cynthia!” he admired her, evidently -having decided during his wait that he could say her name. - -Color--the delicate rose blush in her clear skin which Sam Hilton so -greatly liked--deepened on her cheek. - -“All ready now, Hubert,” she said; her use of his name greatly -pleased him and he grasped her arm, unnecessarily, to guide her out. - -“Just a minute,” she hesitated as she approached the telegraph desk. -“I’ve a wire to send to father.” - -The plan had popped out with the impulse which had formed it; she -had had no idea the moment before of telegraphing to Charles Gail. -But now the ecstasy of the daring game--the game beginning here in -small perils, perhaps, but also perhaps in great; the game which was -swiftly to lead, if she could make it lead, across the sea and -through France into Switzerland and then into the land of the enemy -upon the Rhine--had caught her; and she knew instinctively how to -reply to that as yet uncomprehended telegram from her father. - -She reached for the dispatch blanks before she remembered that, -though her handwriting would not be delivered in Decatur, still here -she would be leaving a record in writing which was not like Cynthia -Gail’s. So she merely took up the pen in her gloved fingers and gave -it to Hubert Lennon who had not yet put his gloves on. - -“You write for me, please,” she requested. “Mr. Charles F. Gail,” -she directed and gave the home street number in Decatur. “Thanks for -your wire telling me to go ahead. I knew you’d back me. Love. Thia.” - -“What?” Lennon said at the last word. - -“Just sign it ‘Thia.’” - -He did so; she charged the dispatch to her room and they went out. -The color was still warm in her face. If one of the men in the lobby -was a German stationed to observe how she did and if he had seen her -start the mistake of writing the telegram, he had seen also an -instant recovery, she thought. - -A large, luxurious limousine, driven by a chauffeur in private -livery, moved up as they came to the curb. When they settled side by -side on the soft cushions, the driver started away to the north -without requiring instructions. - -“You were fifteen years old when I last had a ride with you,” Hubert -obligingly informed her. - -That was nine years ago, in nineteen nine, Cynthia made the mental -note; she had become twenty-four years old instead of twenty-two, -since the morning. - -“But I knew you right away,” he went on. “Aunt Emilie would have -come for you but you see when she telephoned and found you weren’t -in at half-past one, she knew she couldn’t call for you and get to -Mrs. Corliss’ on time. And she’s a stickler for being on time.” - -So it was to Mrs. Corliss’ they were going--to her great home on the -drive. The car was keeping on northward along the snow-banked -boulevard with the white and arctic lake away to the right and, on -the left, the great grounds of Mrs. Potter Palmer’s home. - -“She’d have sent a maid for you,” Hubert explained, “but I said it -was stupid silly to send a maid after a girl who’s going into the -war zone.” - -“I’m glad you came instead for another ride with me,” Cynthia said. - -He reddened with pleasure. In whatever circles he moved, it was -plain he received no great attention from girls. - -“I tried to get into army and navy both, Cynthia,” he blurted, -apropos of nothing except that he seemed to feel that he owed -explanation to her as to why he was not in uniform. “But they turned -me down--eyes. Even the Canadians turned me down. But Aunt Emilie’s -giving an ambulance; and they’re going to let me drive it. They get -under fire sometimes, I hear. On the French front.” - -“They’re often under fire,” Cynthia assured. “A lot of ambulance men -have been killed and wounded; so that’s no slacker service.” - -“Not if you can’t get in anything better,” he said, “but mighty -little beside what Gerry Hull’s been doing.” - -She startled a little. He had spoken Gerry Hull’s name with far less -familiarity than Sam Hilton had uttered it that morning; but Hubert -Lennon’s was with the familiarity of one who knows personally the -man mentioned. - -“You’ve seen him since he’s back?” Cynthia asked. It came to her -suddenly that they--he and she--were going to meet Gerry Hull! - -The car was slowing before the turn in the driveway for Mrs. -Corliss’ city home; a number of cars were ahead and others took line -behind for the _porte cochère_ where guests were entering the house. - -“Yes; I know him pretty well,” Hubert said with a sort of pitiful -pride. He was sensitive to the fact that, when he had spoken of -Gerry Hull, her interest in him had so quickened; but he was quite -unresentful of it. “I’ll see that he knows you, Cynthia,” he -promised. - -She sat quiet, trying to think what to say to Hubert Lennon after -this; but he did not want the talk brought back to himself. He spoke -only of his friend until the man opened the door of the car; the -house door was opened at the same moment; and Cynthia, gathering her -coat about her and clutching close to her knitting bag, stepped out -of the car and into the hall, warm and scented with hot-house -flowers, murmurous with the voices and movement of many people in -the big rooms beyond. A man servant directed her to a room where -maids were in attendance and where she laid off her coat. She had -never in her life been at any affair larger than a wedding or a -reception to a congressman at Onarga; so it was a good deal all at -once to find oneself a guest of Mrs. Corliss’, for it was plain that -this reception was by no means a public affair but that the guests -all had been carefully selected; it was more to be present carrying -a knitting bag (fortunately many others brought knitting bags) in -which were twenty-three hundred dollars and a passport to France; -and something more yet to meet Gerry Hull--or rather, have him meet -you. For when she came out to the hall again, Hubert was waiting for -her. - -“I can’t find Aunt Emilie just now, Cynthia,” he said. “But I’ve -Gerry. There’s no sense in getting into that jam. We’ll go to the -conservatory; and Gerry’ll come there. This way, Cynthia. Quick!” - - - - -CHAPTER IV: AT MRS. CORLISS’ - - -She followed him about the fringes of the groups pressing into the -great front room where a stringed orchestra was starting the first, -glorious notes of the _Marseillaise_; and suddenly a man’s voice, in -all the power and beauty of the opera singer and with the passion of -a Frenchman singing for his people, burst out with the battle song: - - Allons, enfants de la Patrie, - Le jour de gloire est arrivé! - Contre nous de la tyrannie - L’étendard sanglant est levé.... - -It lifted her as nothing had ever before. “Go, children of your -country; the day of glory is here! Against us the bloody standard of -tyranny is raised!...” - -She had sung that marvelous hymn of the French since she was a -child; before she had understood it at all, the leap and lilt of the -verse had thrilled her. It had become to her next an historical song -of freedom; when the war started--and America was not in--the song -had ceased to resound from the past. The victory of the French upon -the Marne, the pursuit to the Aisne; then the stand at Verdun gave -it living, vibrant voice. Still it had been a voice calling to -others--a voice which Ruth might hear but to which she might not -reply. But now, as it called to her: “_Aux armes!_... _Marchons! -Marchons!_...” she was to march with it! - -The wonder of that made her a little dizzy and set her pulse -fluttering in her throat. The song was finished and she was amid the -long fronds of palms, the hanging vines, and the red of winter roses -in the conservatory. She looked about and discovered Hubert Lennon -guiding Gerry Hull to her. - -“Cynthia, this is Gerry Hull; Gerry, this is Cynthia Gail.” - -He was in his uniform which he had worn in the French service; he -had applied to be transferred from his old escadrille to an American -squadron, Ruth knew; but the transfer was not yet effected. The -ribbons of his decorations--the _Croix de Guerre_, the _Médaille -Militaire_, the Cross of the Legion of Honor--ran in a little, -brilliant row across the left breast of his jacket. It bothered him -as her eyes went to them. He would not have sought the display--she -thought--of wearing his decorations here at home; but since he was -appearing in a formal--almost an official function--he had no choice -about it. And she recognized instantly that he had not followed his -friend out of the “jam” of the other rooms to meet her in order to -hear more praise of himself from her. - -He was, indeed, far more interested in her than in himself. “Why, -I’ve met you before, Miss Gail,” he said, and evidently was puzzling -to place her. - -Ruth went warm with pleasure. “I spoke to you on the street--when -your car stopped on Michigan Avenue this morning,” she confessed. -She had not been Cynthia Gail, then; but he could not know that. - -“Of course! And I said some stuffy sort of thing to you, didn’t I?” - -“I didn’t think it--stuffy,” Ruth denied, utilizing his word. There -were seats where they were; and suddenly it occurred to her, when he -glanced at them, that he was remaining standing because she was, and -that he would like to sit down, and delay there with her. She gasped -a little at this realization; and she seated herself upon a gaily -painted bench. He looked about before he sat down. - -“Hello; I say, where’s Hub?” - -Lennon had disappeared; and Ruth knew why. She had forgotten him in -the excitement of meeting Gerry Hull; so he had felt himself in the -way and had immediately withdrawn. But she could do nothing to mend -that matter now; she turned to Gerry Hull, who was on the bench -beside her. - -He had more quickly banished any concern over his friend’s -disappearance and was observing Ruth with so frank an interest that, -instead of gazing away from her when she looked about at him, his -eyes for an instant rested upon hers; his were meditative, almost -wistful eyes for that moment. They made her think, suddenly, of the -little boy whose picture with his grandfather she used to see in her -father’s newspaper--an alert, energetic little boy, yet with a look -of wonder in his eyes why so much fuss was made about him. - -“I seem to’ve been saying no end of stuffy things since I’ve been -back, Miss Gail; they appeared to be what I was expected to say. But -I’m about at the finish of ’em. I’m to say something here this -afternoon; and I’m going to say exactly what I think. Wouldn’t you?” - -“Of course I would,” Ruth said. - -“Then you forgive me?” - -“For what?” - -“Posing like such a self-righteous chump in a cab that you felt you -ought to ask me what you should do!” - -“You haven’t been posing,” Ruth denied for him again. “Why, when I -saw you, what amazed me was that--” she stopped suddenly as she saw -color come to his face. - -“That I wasn’t striking an attitude? Look here, I’m--or I was--one -man in fifty thousand in the foreign legion; and one in thousands -who’ve been in the air a bit. I’d no idea what I was getting into -when they told me to come home here or I’d--” he stopped and shifted -the subject from himself with abrupt finality. “You’re going to -France, Hub tells me. You’ve been there in peacetime, of -course--Paris surely.” - -Ruth nodded. She had not thought that, as Cynthia, she must have -been abroad until he was so certain of it. - -“Did you ever go about old Paris and just poke around, Miss Gail?” - -“In those quaint, crooked little streets which change their names -every time they twist?” - -“The Rue des Saints Pères, the Rue Pavée--that name rather takes one -back, doesn’t it? Some time ago it must have been when in Paris a -citizen could describe where he lived by saying it was on ‘the paved -street.’” - -“Yet it was only in the fifteenth century that wolves used to come -in winter into Paris.” - -“To scare François Villon into his _Lodgings for a_ _Night_?” Gerry -said. “So you know that story of Stevenson’s, too?” - -“Yes.” - -“I suppose, though, you had to stay at the Continental, or the -Regina, or some hotel like that, didn’t you? I did at first, when my -tutor used to take me. You’d have been with your parents, of -course----” - -“Of course,” Ruth said. - -“But have you planned where you’ll stay now? You’ll choose your own -billets, I believe.” - -Ruth appealed to her memories of Du Maurier and Victor Hugo; she had -read, long ago, _Trilby_ and _Les Misérables_, of course, and -_Notre-Dame de Paris_; and she knew a good bit about old Paris. - -“The Latin Quarter’s cheapest, I suppose.” - -“And any amount the most sport!” - -She got along very well; or he was not at all critical. He was -relaxing with her from the strain of being upon exhibition; and he -seemed to be having a very good time. The joy of this made her bold -to plan with him all sorts of explorations of Paris when they would -meet over there with a day off. She looked away and closed her eyes -for a second, half expecting that when she opened them the sound of -music, and the roses, and palms, and conservatory, and Gerry Hull -must have vanished; but he was there when she glanced back. And she -noticed agreeable and pleasing things about him--the way his dark -hair brushed back above his temples, the character in his strong, -well-formed hands. - -[Illustration: She looked away, half expecting the sound of the music, -and the roses, and palms, and Gerry Hull would vanish] - -Lady Agnes came out looking for him; and he called her over: - -“Oh, Agnes, here we are!” - -So Ruth met Lady Agnes, too; but Lady Agnes took him away, -laughingly scolding him for having left her so long alone among all -those American people. Ruth did not follow; and while she lingered -beside the bench where he had sat with her, she warned herself that -Gerry Hull had paid her attention as a man of his breeding would -have paid any girl whom he had been brought out to meet. Then the -blood, warm within her, insisted that he had not disliked her; he -had even liked her for herself. - -The approach of an elderly woman in a gray dress returned Ruth to -the realities and the risks of the fraud she had been playing to win -Gerry Hull’s liking. For the woman gazed at her questioningly and -swiftly came up. - -Ruth arose. Was this Hubert Lennon’s “Aunt Emilie?” she wondered. -Had she recently seen the real Cynthia so that she was aware that -Ruth was not she? - -No; the woman was calling her Cynthia; and with the careful -enunciation of the syllables, Ruth recognized the voice as that -which had addressed her over the telephone when she was in her room -at the hotel. - -“Cynthia, you are doing well--excellently!” This could refer only to -the fact that she had met Gerry Hull already and had not displeased -him. “Develop this opportunity to the utmost; you may find him of -greatest possible use when you are in France!” - - - - -CHAPTER V: “YOU’RE NOT LIKE ANYONE ELSE” - - -The woman immediately moved away and left the conservatory. No one -could have observed her speaking to Ruth except, perhaps, Hubert -Lennon, who now had reappeared and, finding Ruth alone, offered his -escort shyly. If he had noticed and if he wondered what acquaintance -Cynthia had happened upon here, he did not inquire. - -“We’d better go into the other rooms,” he suggested. “They’re -starting speeches.” - -She accompanied him, abstractedly. Whatever question she had held as -to whether the Germans held her under surveillance had been -answered; but it was evident that so far, at least, her appearance -in the part of Cynthia Gail had satisfied them--indeed, more than -satisfied. What beset Ruth at this moment was the fact that she now -knew the identity of an unsuspected enemy among the guests in this -house; but she could not accuse that woman without at the same time -involving herself. It presented a nice problem in values; Ruth must -be quite confident that she possessed the will and the ability to -aid her side to greater extent than this woman could harm it; or she -must expose the enemy even at the cost of betraying herself. - -She looked for the woman while Hubert led her through the first -large room in the front of the big house, where scores of guests who -had been standing or moving about were beginning to find places in -the rows of chairs which servants were setting up. Hubert took Ruth -to a small, nervously intent lady with glistening black hair and -brows, who was seated and half turned about emphatically conversing -with the people behind her. - -“Aunt Emilie, here’s Cynthia,” Hubert said loudly to win her -attention; she looked up, scrutinized Ruth and smiled. - -“I had to help Mrs. Corliss receive, dear; or I’d have called for -you myself. So glad Hubert has you here.” - -Ruth took the hand which she outstretched and was drawn down beside -her. Aunt Emilie (Ruth knew no name for her in relation to herself -and therefore used none in her reply) continued to hold Ruth’s hand -affectionately for several moments and patted it with approval when -at last she let it go. Years ago she had been a close friend of -Cynthia Gail’s mother, it developed; Julia Gail had written her that -Cynthia was in Chicago on her way to France; Aunt Emilie had asked -Mrs. Corliss to telephone to Cynthia on Saturday inviting her here; -Aunt Emilie herself had telephoned on Sunday and Monday to the hotel -to find Cynthia, but vainly each time. - -“Where in the world were you all that time, my dear child?” - -A man’s voice suddenly rose above the murmur in the room. The man -was standing upon a little platform toward which the chairs were -faced and with him were an officer in the uniform of the French -Alpine chasseurs, Lady Agnes Ertyle, and Gerry Hull. For an instant -the start of the speaking was to Ruth only a happy interruption -postponing the problem of explanations to “Aunt Emilie”; but the -next minute Ruth had forgotten all about that small matter. Gerry -Hull, from his place on the platform, was looking for her. - -The French officer, having been introduced, had commenced to address -his audience in emphatic, exalted English; the others upon the -platform had sat down. Gerry Hull’s glance, which had been going -about the room studying the people present, had steadied to the look -of a search for some special one; his eyes found Ruth and rested. -She was that special one. He looked away soon; but his eyes had -ceased to search and again, when Ruth glanced directly at him, she -found him observing her. - -She leaned forward a little and tried not to look toward him or to -think about him too much; but that was hard to do. She had -recognized that, when Hubert Lennon had summoned Gerry Hull out to -the conservatory, something had been troubling him and he had been -on the brink of a decision. He had met her during the moments when -he must decide and, in a way, he had referred the decision to her. -“They’re going to make me say something here this afternoon; and -this time I’m going to say exactly what I think. Wouldn’t you?” - -She had told him that she would, without knowing at all what it was -about. Now it seemed to her that, as his time for speaking -approached, he was finding his determination more difficult. - -The French officer was making an extravagant address, praising -everyone here and all Americans for coming into the war to save -France and civilization; he was complimenting every American deed, -proclaiming gratitude in the name of his country for the aid which -America had given; and, while he was speaking thus excessively, Ruth -was aware that Gerry Hull was watching her most intently; and when -she glanced up at him she saw him draw up straighter in his chair -and sit there, looking away, with lips tight shut. The French -officer finished and, after the applause, Lady Agnes Ertyle was -introduced and she spoke earnestly and simply, telling a little of -the work of Americans in Belgium and in France, of the great value -of American contributions and moral support; she added her praise -and thanks for American aid. - -It seemed to Ruth that once Gerry Hull was about to interrupt. But -he did not; no one else appeared to notice his agitation; everyone -was applauding the pretty English girl who had spoken so gracefully -and was sitting down. The gentleman who was making the introductions -was beginning to relate who Gerry Hull was and what he had done, -when Gerry suddenly stood up. Everyone saw him and clapped wildly; -the introducer halted and turned; he smiled and sat down, leaving -him standing alone before his friends. - -Men here and there were rising while they applauded and called his -name; other men, women, and girls got to their feet. Hubert Lennon, -on Ruth’s left, was one of the first to stand up; his aunt was -standing. So Ruth arose then, too; everyone throughout the great -rooms was standing now in honor of Gerry Hull. He gazed about and -went white a little; he was looking again for someone lost in all -the standing throng; he was looking for Ruth! He saw her and studied -her queerly again for a moment. She sat down; others began settling -back and the rooms became still. - -“I beg your pardon,” Ruth heard Gerry Hull’s voice apologizing first -to the man who had tried to introduce him. “I beg the pardon of you -all for what I’m going to say. It’s not a word of what I’m supposed -to say, I know; it’ll be just what I think and feel. - -“We’re not doing our part, people!” he burst out passionately -without more preparation. “We’re still taking protection behind -England and France, as we’ve done since the start of the war! We -ought to be there in force now! God knows, we ought to have been -there in force three years ago! But instead of being on the battle -line with them in force even with theirs, our position is so -pitiable that we make our allies feel grateful for a few score of -destroyers and a couple of army divisions holding down quiet sectors -in Lorraine. That’s because our allies have become so used to -expecting nothing--or next to nothing--of America that anything at -all which we do fills them with such sincere amazement that they -compliment and overwhelm us with thanks of the sort you have heard.” - -He turned about to the French officer and to Lady Agnes, who had -just spoken. “Forgive me!” he cried to them so that all in the rooms -could hear. “You know I mean no offense to you or lack of -appreciation of what you have said. You cannot tell the truth to my -people; I can for you, and I must!” - -He straightened and spoke to his own people again. “On the day that -German uhlans rode across the Belgian border, Belgium and England -and France--yes, even Russia--looked to us to come in; or, at least, -to protest and, if our protest was not respected, to enforce it by -our arms. But we did nothing--nothing but send a few dollars for -Belgian relief, a few ships of grain and a few civilians to -distribute it. The outrages of the Boche beasts went on--Termonde, -Louvain, the massacres of the Armenians, the systematic starvation -and enslavement of Belgians, Poles, Serbians; and we subscribed a -little more money for relief. Here and there American missionaries -saved a life or two. That’s all we did, my friends! So here in our -country and in our own newspapers the German Imperial Embassy paid -for and had printed advertisements boasting that they were going to -sink without warning ships sailing from our ports with our own -people aboard; and they sank the _Lusitania_! - -“Then England and France and the remnant of Belgium said, ‘Surely -now America must come in!’ But you know what we did!” - -He stopped, breathless, and Ruth was leaning forward, breathless -too. The passion which had seized and was swaying him was rousing -like passions in the others before him; his revolt had become their -revolt; and they warmed and kindled with him. But she did not. -Though this outburst of his soul brought to her feeling for him, -himself, beyond what she could have believed, the meaning of what he -said did not so inflame her. Her feeling was amazingly personal to -him. - -“We protested,” he was going on. “Protested; and did nothing! They -sank our ships and murdered our own people under the American flag; -and we continued to protest! And England and France and the nations -holding back the Boche with them ceased to honor us with -expectations of action; so, expecting nothing, naturally they became -more grateful and amazed at anything which we happened to do. When -the Kaiser told us he might allow us--if we were very good--one ship -a week to Europe, provided we sent him notice in advance and we -painted it in stripes, just as he said, and when that at last was -too much for us to take, they honored us in Europe with wondering -what we would do; and they thanked and complimented us, their new -ally, for sending them more doctors and medical supplies without -charging them for it, and after a while a few divisions of soldiers. - -“God knows I would say no word against our men who have gone to -France; I speak for them! For I have been an American in France and -have learned some of the shame of it! The shame,” he repeated -passionately, “of being an American! I have gone about an ordinary -duty, performing it much after the fashion of my comrades in the -French service--or in the British--and when I have returned, I have -found that what I happened to do is the thing picked out for special -mention and praise to the public, when others who have done the same -or more than myself have not had that honor. Because I was an -American! They feel they must yet compliment and thank Americans for -doing what they have been doing as a matter of course all this time -that we have stayed out; so they thank and praise us for beginning -to do now what we ought to have done in 1914. - -“We have been sitting here--you and I--letting our allies thank us -for at last beginning to fight a little of our war! Think of that -when they have been giving themselves and their all--all--in our -cause for three and a half years!” - -He stepped back suddenly and stood with bowed head as though--Ruth -thought--he had meant to say more, but suddenly had found that he -could not. She was trembling as she sat staring at him; she was -alone in her chair now; for the people all about, overswept by their -feelings, were standing up again, and clapping wildly, and calling -out: “France! France!... England! France!... Belgium!... England!” -they were crying in adulation. - -She saw him again for an instant; he had stepped back a little -farther, and raised his head, and was gazing at the people -acclaiming him and the allies for whom he had spoken. He stared -about and seemed to seek her--at least, he gazed about when this -great acclaim suddenly bewildered him, as he had gazed before he had -spoken and when his eyes had found her. She stood up then; but he -turned about to Lady Agnes, who had risen and was beside him; the -people in front of Ruth screened him from sight and when she got -view of the platform again he was gone. - -The guests were leaving their chairs and moving toward the rooms -where refreshments were being served; but it was many minutes before -Ruth heard anyone mention other matters than the war and Gerry -Hull’s speech. That had been a thoroughly remarkable and sincere -statement of the American position, Ruth heard the people about her -saying; to have heard it was a real experience. - -It had come as the climax of what for Ruth was far more than that; -the darkening of the early winter night outside the drawn curtains -of the windows, the tinkling of a little clock for the half -hour--half-past four--brought to her the amazing transformation -worked upon Ruth Alden since, scarcely six hours before, the -wonderful wand of war had touched her. With the dawn of this same -day which was slipping so fast into the irrevocable past, she had -awakened to dream as of a wish unrealizable that she might welcome -Gerry Hull home; now she knew him; she had talked with him alone; -when she had been among all his friends in the other room, he had -sought her with his eyes. He had disappeared from the rooms now; and -no one seemed to know where he had gone, though many inquired. But -Ruth knew; so she slipped away from Hubert Lennon and from his Aunt -Emilie, who had forgotten all about asking where Cynthia had been -the last two days; and Ruth returned to the conservatory. - -Upon that bench where they had sat together, hidden by the palms, -and hanging vines, and the roses, she saw him sitting alone, bent -forward with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, -staring down at the floor. - -He looked up quickly as he heard her step; she halted, frightened -for a moment by her own boldness. If he had chosen that spot for his -flight from the others, it would mean--she had felt--that he was -willing that she should return there. But how did she know that? -Might it not be wholly in her fancy that, since they had separated, -he had thought about her at all? - -“Hello, Miss Gail!” he hailed her quickly, but so quietly that it -was certain he wished no one else to know that he was there. “I was -wondering how I could get you here.” - -Her heart began beating once more. “I wondered if you’d be here,” -she said; he could make of that a good deal what he liked. - -He stood up. “Let’s stay here, please,” he asked her, whispering; -and he bent a little while he waited for her to be seated, hiding -from sight of anyone who might glance over the tops of the palms. He -was beside her on the bench now. - -“I want you to tell me what I did in there just now, Miss Gail,” he -asked. “Agnes Ertyle can’t, of course; others, whom I know pretty -well, won’t. But you will, I think.” - -The complete friendliness of this confidence made Ruth wonder what -he might have known about Cynthia Gail, which let him thus so -instinctively disclose himself to her; but it was not to Cynthia -Gail; it was to her, herself, Ruth! - -“I’ve only known you for an hour, Miss Gail; but I’d rather have -your honest opinion than that of any other American.” - -From the way he said that, she could not tell whether he had chosen -his word purposely to except Lady Agnes Ertyle from any comparison -with her; and she wanted to know! - -“I think you meant to say a very, very fine thing,” Ruth told him -simply. - -“But I actually said----” - -“You’ve been a long time away from home--from America, our country,” -Ruth interrupted him before he could get her into greater -difficulties. “You’ve only known me an hour; but, of course, I’ve -known you--or about you--for a good many years. Everyone has. You’ve -been away ever since the start of the war, of course; and even -before that you were away, mostly in England, for the greater part -of your time, weren’t you?” - -“I was at school at Harrow for a while,” he confessed. “And I was at -Cambridge in 1913-1914.” - -“That’s what I thought. So while you’ve called yourself an American -and you’ve meant to stay an American--I know you meant that--you -couldn’t quite really become one, could you?” - -He drew back from her a trifle and his eyes rested upon hers a -little confused, while color crept into his brown face and across -his forehead. - -“Please tell me just what you want to,” he begged. - -“I don’t want to tell you a thing unpleasant!” she cried quietly. -“And I can’t, unless you’ll believe that I never admired anyone so -much as you when you were speaking--I mean anyone,” she qualified -quickly, “who was saying things which I believed all wrong!” - -Terror for her boldness caught her again; but it was because he had -seen that with him she must be bold--or honest--that he had wanted -her there; for he did want her there and more than before. While he -had been speaking, she had been thinking about him--thinking as well -as feeling for him; and she had been thinking about him ever -since--thinking thoughts her own, or at least distinct from his and -from those of his friends in the other rooms who had so acclaimed -him and from whom he had fled. He realized it; and that was why he -wanted her. - -“I believe that to be a true American is the highest honor in the -world today,” she said with the simplicity of deep feeling. “I -believe that, so far from having anything to be ashamed about, an -American--particularly such an American as you might be----” - -“Might be!” he repeated. - -“Has more to be rightly proud of than anyone else! And not alone -because America is in the war now, but because--at the cost of -staying out so long--our country came in when and how she did! You -understand I say nothing against our allies--nothing like what you -have said against our own country! Belgium got the first attack of -the Germans and fought back, oh, so nobly, and so bravely, and -hopelessly; but Belgium was invaded! France fought, as everyone -knows, in self-defense and for a principle; England fought in -self-defense, too, as well as for a principle--for were not the -German guns almost at her shores? But we have gone in for a -principle--and in self-defense, too, perhaps; but for the principle -first! Oh, there is a difference in that! A hundred million people -safe and unthreatened--for whether or not we really were safe and -unthreatened, we believed we were--going into a war without idea of -any possible gain or advantage solely for a principle! Oh, I don’t -mean to make a speech to you.” - -“Go on!” he ordered. “I’ve just made one; you go on now.” - -“You spoke about the Kaiser’s order to us about how to paint our -ships, as if the insult of that was what at last brought us in! How -little that had to do with it for us! It merely happened to come at -the time we could at last go in--when a hundred million people, not -in danger which they could see or feel, decided to go in, knowing -even better than those who had decided earlier what it was going to -mean. For the war was different then from what it was at first; the -Russia of the Czar and of the empire was gone; and in France and in -England there was a difference, too. Oh, I don’t know how to say it; -just France, at first, was fighting as France and for France against -Germany; and England, for England, was doing the same. And America -couldn’t do that--I mean fight for America; she couldn’t join with -allies who were fighting for themselves or even for one another. The -side of the allies had to become more than that before we could go -in; and it is and we’re in! Oh, I don’t know how or when it will -appear; but I know--know that before long you will be prouder to be -an American than you ever dreamed you could be if we had gone in -like the others when you thought we should.” - -She had been gazing at him and, for a few moments, he had been -staring in bewilderment at her; but now he was turned away and she -could see from the set of his lips, from the pulse throbbing below -his temple as the muscles of his face pulled taut, how she had -offended him. - -“Thank you,” he said to her shortly. - -“I’ve hurt you!” - -“Didn’t you mean to?” - -“Not this way.” - -“You told what you thought; I asked to know it. How do you happen to -be here, Miss Gail?” he asked with sudden directness after a pause. - -Ruth recollected swiftly Cynthia Gail’s connections through Hubert -Lennon’s aunt with Mrs. Corliss and she related them to Gerry Hull, -perforce; and this unavoidable deception distressed her more than -all the previous ones she had played. She realized that, in order to -understand what she had said, he was trying to understand her; and -she wished that she could tell him that she was Ruth Alden, working, -only as late as that morning, in Hilton Brothers’ office. - -“You’re not like anyone else here,” he said, without pressing his -inquiry further. “Hub Lennon told me that he had a different sort of -girl with him. These other people are all like myself; you saw the -way they took what I said. They didn’t take it as said against them; -they’ve been in the war, heart and soul, since the first. You’ve -only come in when we--I mean America,” he corrected with a wince, -“came in. I think I felt that without knowing it; that’s why I -talked to you more than to all the rest together. That’s why I -needed to see you again; you’re more of an American, I guess, than -anyone else here.” - -He said that with a touch of bitterness which prevented her offering -reply. - -“You haven’t hurt me as me,” he denied. “If you just told me that my -country believed I was wrong and had been fighting for something -lower than it was willing to fight for until April, 1917, why that -would be all right. But what you have said is against the finest, -noblest, most chivalrous men the world ever knew--a good many of -them dead, now, fallen on the field of honor, Americans--Americans -of the highest heart, Norman Prince, Kiffen Rockwell, Vic Chapman, -and the rest! If being American means to wait, after you see beasts -like the Germans murdering women and children, until you’ve -satisfied your smug soul that everyone who’s fighting the beast is -just your sort, they weren’t Americans and I’m not an American -either, thank God!” - -He arose from beside her in his overwhelming emotion; and she, -without knowing what she did, put out a hand, and caught his sleeve, -and pulled him down beside her again. - -“Wait!” she almost commanded him. “I can’t have you misunderstand me -so! This morning when I woke up--it was before I knew I was to meet -you--I tried to imagine knowing you!” - -“To tell me what you have?” - -“To thank you for what you have done!” - -“You’re a strange person!” - -“Oh, I can’t explain everything even to myself!” Ruth cried. “I only -know that you--and the men you’ve mentioned--had the wonderful right -to do, of yourselves, fine and brave things before our country had -the right!” - -That was sheer stupidity to him, she saw; and she could not make it -clearer. He wanted to leave her now; but he did not forget himself -as he had the moment earlier. He waited for her to rise and he -accompanied her to the other rooms. They separated without formal -leave-taking as others claimed him, and Hubert Lennon found her. -Hubert and his aunt took her back to the hotel, where Aunt -Emilie--Ruth yet had no name for her--offered an invitation for -luncheon tomorrow or the day after. Ruth accepted for the second day -and went up to her room, where she locked herself in, took off the -yellow dress, and flung herself face downward across the bed. - -Except for the chocolate and little cakes served at Mrs. Corliss’, -she had eaten nothing since breakfast; but she scarcely thought to -be hungry or considered her weariness now. What a day had been given -to her; and how frightfully she had bungled it! She had met Gerry -Hull, and he had found interest in her, and she had taken advantage -of his interest only to offend, and insult him, and turn him away! -The Germans, upon whose support she must depend in all her plans, -had given her a first definite order; and she had completely -disregarded it in her absorption in offending Gerry Hull. At any -moment, therefore, they might take action against her--either direct -action of their own, or give information which would expose her to -the American authorities, and bring about her arrest and disgrace. A -miserable end, now, not only to her great resolves of that morning, -but to any possible rehabilitation with Gerry Hull! For if that -morning she had dreamed of meeting him, now this night a thousand -times intensified she thought of him again and again--constantly, it -seemed. And yet she would not have taken back a word of that which -had angered him and turned him away. - -She got up at last and went down alone to dinner; and, when nothing -more happened, she returned to her own room, where after more -carefully going over all Cynthia Gail’s things, she took plain paper -and an envelope and wrote a short note to Sam Hilton, informing him -that most important personal matters suddenly had forced her to give -up her position with him; she wrote the landlady at her boarding -house that she had been called home and would either return or send -for her trunk later. She mailed these herself and went to bed. - -The next morning she bought a small typewriter, of the sort which -one can carry traveling, and took up Cynthia Gail’s correspondence. -Neither the mail of that day nor the telephone presented to her any -difficult problem; and she had no new callers. Indeed, except for -Hubert Lennon, who “looked by”--as he spoke of it--just before noon, -she encountered no one who had anything to say to her until, walking -out early in the afternoon, she met upon the street the woman in -gray who had given her the order about Gerry Hull on yesterday -afternoon. - -Ruth went a little weak with fright when the woman caught step -beside her; but the woman at once surprised her with reassurance. - -“Gerry Hull returns to France from here,” the woman informed -abruptly. “He will be transferred to the American air service there; -he will sail from New York probably on the _Ribot_ next week. That -is a passenger vessel, carrying cargo, of course; but not yet used -for troop shipments. Passengers proceed as individuals. You will -probably be allowed a certain amount of choice in selecting your -ship. So you shall report at New York and endeavor to secure passage -upon the _Ribot_. Understand?” - -“Perfectly,” Ruth said. - -“Your friendship with Gerry Hull will prove invaluable in France! Do -nothing to jeopardize it! You have done with him, well! But you are -in too much danger here; go East tonight; wait there.” - -The woman went away. How much did she know about what had passed -with Gerry Hull, Ruth wondered. She had seen, probably, that Ruth -was with him again in the conservatory after his speech and that -they had stayed there a long time together. She had done with him, -well! She smiled woefully to herself; at least it seemed to have -aided her that the Germans thought so. - -It would have puzzled her more, certainly, if she had known that -after the time when Gerry Hull and she forgot to whisper and forgot, -indeed, everyone but themselves, the woman had heard almost every -word which was said; and that the woman’s opinion of the girl who -was playing the part of Cynthia Gail was that she was a very clever -one to know enough and dare enough to take single and violent -opposition to Gerry Hull. For the Germans, in preparation for this -war, had made a most elaborate and detailed study of psychology of -individuals and of nations. That study of nations has not shown -conspicuously successful results; but their determination of factors -which are supposed to influence individuals is said to have fared -far better. - -Their instructions to a woman--or a girl--who is commanded to make -an impression upon a man inform that a girl in dealing with a weak -character progresses most certainly and fastest by agreeing and -complying; but when one has to do with a man of strong character, -opposition and challenge to him bring the surest result. - -Of course that is not an exclusively German discovery; and to act in -accordance with it, one is not obliged to be truly a German spy and -to know it from the tutorings of a German psychologist. Indeed, one -does not have to know it at all; one need merely be a young girl, -thoughtful and honest, as well as impulsive and of quick but deep -passions, who admires and cares so very much for a young man who has -talked serious things with her, that she cannot just say yes to his -yes and no to his no, but must try at once to work out the -difference between them. - -Not to know it is hard on that girl, particularly when she is -setting out upon an adventure which at once cuts her off from -everyone whom she has known. - -Ruth had no companion at all. She had to write to her own mother in -Onarga, of course; and, after buying with cash an order for two -thousand dollars, she sent it to her mother with a letter saying -that she was assigned to a most wonderful work which was taking her -abroad. She was not yet free to discuss the details; but her mother -must trust her and know that she was doing a right and wise thing; -and her mother must say nothing about it to anyone at all. It might -keep her away for two years or more; so the people who were paying -her expenses had forwarded her this money for home. Ruth wished her -mother to send for her clothes and her trunk from the boarding -house; Ruth would not need them. And if any inquiry came for Ruth -from Hilton Brothers or elsewhere, Ruth had gone East to take a -position. There was no use writing her at the old addresses; she -would send an address later. - -She knew her mother; and she knew that her mother was sure enough of -her so that she would do as asked and not worry too much. - -So upon that same afternoon, Ruth packed up Cynthia Gail’s things; -and she wrote to Cynthia Gail’s parents and to Second Lieutenant -George Byrne at Camp Grant, signing the name below the writing as -Cynthia Gail had signed it upon her passport. - -That passport was ceasing to be a mere possession and was soon to be -put to use; so Ruth practiced long in signing the name. The -description of Cynthia Gail as checked on the passport was almost -faultless for herself; height, five feet six and a half inches; -weight, 118 pounds; face, oval; eyes, blue; hair, yellow; and so -with all the rest. The photograph of Cynthia Gail was pasted upon -the passport and upon it was stamped the seal of the United States, -as well as a red-ink stamping which went over the edge of the -photograph upon the paper of the passport. It was very possible, -Ruth thought, that the German girl for whom this passport was -intended would have removed that picture of Cynthia Gail and -substituted one of herself; to do that required an emboss seal of -the United States, besides the rubber stamp of the red ink. Ruth did -not doubt that the Germans possessed replicas of these and also the -skill to forge the substitution. But she possessed neither. - -Moreover, the photograph of Cynthia Gail seemed to Ruth even more -like herself than it had at first. The difference was really more in -expression than in the features themselves; and Ruth, consciously or -unconsciously, had become more like that girl in the picture. She -had, also, the identical dress in which the picture was taken. She -determined to wear that when she presented the passport and risk the -outcome. Her advantage so far had been that no one had particular -reason to suspect her; she had fitted herself into the relations -already arranged to take Cynthia Gail to France and they seemed -capable, of their own momentum, to carry her on. - -Hubert Lennon “looked by” again later in the afternoon and she asked -him to tell his aunt that she was going away. He was much concerned -and insistent upon doing what he could to aid her. - -“Do you know when you’ll be sailing?” he asked. - -“I hope next week,” she said. - -“Could you possibly go on the _Ribot_?” - -“Why on the _Ribot_?” - -“Gerry Hull’s just got word that he’s to join again on the other -side,” Hubert said, “so he’ll be going back next week on the -_Ribot_, he thinks.” - -Ruth checked just in time a “Yes, I know.” - -“I’m going to try to get across with him,” Hubert added. Ruth felt -liking again for this young man who always put his friend before -himself. - -“That’s good. I hope surely I can get on the _Ribot_.” - -“Aunt Emilie knows people in New York who’ll help arrange it for -you, if I ask ’em. You’ll let me?” - -“Please!” Ruth accepted eagerly. She wanted exceedingly to know one -other thing; but she delayed asking and then made the query as -casual as she could. - -“Lady Agnes stays in Chicago a while?” - -Hubert colored as this question ended for him his pretense with -himself that she wanted to be on the _Ribot_ because of him. - -“No; she’s going when Gerry goes. She plans to be on the _Ribot_ -too. They always intended to return at the same time.” - -“Of course,” Ruth said. What wild fancies she followed! - -Hubert went off; but returned to take her to the train. He brought -with him letters from his aunt--credentials of Ruth as Cynthia Gail -to powerful people who did not know Cynthia Gail, and who were asked -to further her desires in every way. - -Thus, at the end of seven days, Ruth Alden sailed for the first time -away from her native land upon the _Ribot_ for Bordeaux to -become--in the reports of the American authorities who approved and -passed her on--a worker in the devastated districts of France; to -become, in whatever report the agents of Hohenzollernism in America -made to their superiors, a dependable and resourceful spy for -Germany; to become--in the resolution she swore to herself and to -the soul of Cynthia Gail and the prayers she prayed--an emissary for -her cause and her country into the land of the enemy who would know -no mercy to such as herself. - - - - -CHAPTER VI: “WE’RE FIGHTING” - - -There is a thrill upon awaking on your first morning on board a ship -at sea which all the German U-boats under the ocean can scarcely -increase. You may imagine all you please what it may be; and it will -amaze you with something more. Ruth Alden had imagined; and her -first forenoon on shipboard was filled with surprises. - -She had gone aboard from the New York quay at nine the evening -before, as she had been warned to do; she had looked into her -cabin--a small, square white compartment with two bunks, upper and -lower, an unupholstered seat, a washbowl with a looking glass beside -the porthole and with a sort of built-in bureau with four drawers, -above which was posted conspicuously the rules to be observed in -emergencies. These were printed in French and English and were -illustrated by drawings of exactly how to adjust the life-preservers -to be found under all berths. Someone, whose handbaggage bore the -initials “M. W.” and who evidently was to share the cabin with her, -had been in before her and gone out. Ruth saw that the steward -disposed her cabin baggage beside M. W.’s; she shut herself in a -moment after the steward had gone, touching the pillow of her bunk, -reading the rules again, trying the water-taps. She stood with shut -eyes, breathing deliciously the strange, scrubbed, salty smells of a -deep-water boat; she opened the door and went out to the deck with -the darkness of the Hudson on one hand; upon the other, the -myriad-lighted majesty of New York. - -She was standing there at the rail gazing up at the marvelous city -when Hubert Lennon found her. He merely wanted to make sure she was -aboard. Gerry Hull and Captain Lescault--he was the French officer -who had spoken at Mrs. Corliss’--and an English captain, Forraker, -of the same party, were aboard now; Lady Agnes and the Englishwomen -with whom she traveled also were aboard, Hubert said. - -He was glad to find that Cynthia was all right; but he said that a -nasty sea was running outside; the _Ribot_ might go out at any time. -Hubert thought Cynthia had better go to bed and get all the sleep -she could. - -Ruth went below, not with any idea of sleeping, but to avoid meeting -Gerry Hull just yet. That she was aboard the _Ribot_ under orders -did not undo the fact that she was here for the conscious purpose of -furthering her acquaintance with him. He must guess that, she -thought--he from whom she had heard nothing at all since that -afternoon at Mrs. Corliss’. - -Ruth was ready for bed when someone put a key in the cabin door, but -knocked before turning it, and a girl’s pleasant voice inquired, -“All right to come in?” - -“All right,” Ruth said, covering up in bed. - -A dark-haired, dark-eyed girl of twenty-six or seven entered. “I’m -Milicent Wetherell,” she introduced herself. “I’m from St. Louis; -I’m going to Paris for work in a _vestiaire_.” - -Ruth sat up and put out her hand; she liked this girl on sight. “I’m -Ru----Cynthia Gail of Decatur, Illinois,” she caught herself -swiftly. It was the first time in the eight days that she had been -Cynthia that she had made even so much of a slip; but Milicent -Wetherell did not notice it. - -Milicent went to bed and turned out the light. The boat did not -move; and after indefinite hours of lying still in the dark, Ruth -dropped to sleep. When she awoke it was daylight; the ship was -swaying, falling, rising; the tremor of engines shook it. They were -at sea. - -The waves were higher than any Ruth had encountered before, but they -were slower and smoother too--not nearly so jumpy and choppy as the -Lake Michigan surf in a strong wind. The big steamer rose and rolled -to them far more steadily than the vessels upon which Ruth had -voyaged on holidays on the lake. Milicent Wetherell, in the lower -berth, lay miserably awake with no desire whatever to get up; but -Ruth let the stewardess lead her to the bath; she dressed and found -the way to the dining-saloon. She was supplied, along with a number -designating her “abandon ship” place in starboard lifeboat No. 7, a -numeral for a seat at a table. - -At this hour of half after nine, there were perhaps fifty men at -breakfast and just five other women or girls; four men were seated -at the table to which Ruth was led--Captain Forraker one of them. He -arose as she approached. Possibly he remembered her, Ruth thought, -from an introduction at Mrs. Corliss’; much more probably Hubert -Lennon--who undoubtedly had had her placed at this table--had -reminded Captain Forraker about her. His three table-companions -arose and Captain Forraker presented them to her; they were all -English--two young officers and one older man, in rank a colonel, -who had been about some ordnance inspection work in America. Ruth -sat down; they sat down and resumed their talk; and Ruth got the -first of her morning amazements. She was in a foreign land, already; -she was not just on the way there, though still in sight of Long -Island. She was now in Europe, with Europeans thinking and talking, -not as guests of America, but as Europeans at home again. - -Ruth had been brought up, as a good American, to believe her country -the greatest in the world; and, implicitly, she believed it. She -recognized that sons and daughters of other nations likewise were -reared to believe their native land the best and their people the -noblest; but she never had been able to quite believe that they -really could think so. They must make an exception, down deep in -their consciousness, for America, she was sure; however loyal they -might be to their own institutions and to their own fellows, they -must admire more highly the American ideals of freedom and -democracy, and they must consider that the people who lived by and -for those ideals were potentially, at least, the greatest. - -It was a momentous experience, therefore, to hear her country -discussed--not in an unfriendly way or even with prejudice, but by -open-minded foreigners trying to inform one another of the facts -about America as they had found them; America was a huge but quite -untried quantity; its institutions and ideals seemed to them -interesting, but on the whole not nearly so good as their own; -certainly there was no suggestion of their endowing Americans with -superior battle abilities, therefore. The nation--that nation -founded more than a hundred and forty years ago which was to Ruth -the basis of all being--was to them simply an experiment of which no -one could yet tell the outcome. - -They did not say that, of course; they said nothing at all to which -she could take the slightest exception. They simply brought to her -the brevity and unconclusiveness of a century of independent -existence in the perspective of a thousand; their national thought -started not with 1776 but with the Conquest or, even earlier, when -the Roman legions abandoned Britain and King Arthur reigned. - -When they spoke of their homes, as they did once, and Ruth found -opportunity to inquire of one of them how long he had had his home -in Sussex, he told her: - -“The present house goes back to 1582.” - -It rather made her gasp. No wonder that a man of a family which had -occupied the “present” house since before the Pilgrims sailed, -looked upon America as an unproved venture. - -“They’re in it to the end now, I consider,” this man commented later -to his companion when they returned to the discussion of America and -the war. - -“Quite so, probably,” the other said. “The South went to absolute -exhaustion in their Civil War.” - -“Absolutely,” the Sussex man agreed. “North probably would have too, -if necessary.” - -They were estimating American will and endurance, not by pretty -faiths and protestations, but by what Americans, in their short -history, had actually shown. - -“But this is foreign war, of course;” the colonel qualified the -judgment dubiously. - -The man whose “present” house went back to 1582 nodded thoughtfully. - -Ruth received all this eagerly; it could not in the least shake her -own confidence in her people; but it gave her better comprehension -of the ideas which Gerry Hull had gained from his association with -Europeans. And this morning, when she was certain to meet him, she -wished--oh she wished to an incredible degree--to understand him -more fully than before. She learned from a remark of Captain -Forraker’s that Gerry Hull and Lady Agnes had breakfasted early and -had gone out on deck. Ruth had intended to go on deck after -breakfast; but now she changed her mind. She went to the saloon; and -hardly was she there, when Gerry Hull and Lady Agnes came in from -the cold. - -They were laughing together at something which had happened without. -Ruth saw them before either of them noticed her; and her heart -halted in the excitement of expectancy during the instant Gerry -Hull’s glance went about the saloon. He saw her; nodded to her and -looked at once to Lady Agnes, who immediately advanced to Ruth, -greeting her cordially and with perfect recollection of having -talked with her at Mrs. Corliss’. Upon this French ship bound for -Europe, the English girl was at home as the Englishmen at the -breakfast table had been; she felt herself, in a sense, a hostess of -Ruth. - -“You’ve been about the ship yet, Miss Gail?” Gerry Hull asked. - -“Only a little last night,” Ruth said. - -“Come out on deck then,” he invited her. “Done for just now, Agnes?” -he asked. - -“Just now,” Agnes said. “But I know you’re not. Go on!” she bid, -smiling at him as his eyes came to hers. - -Ruth saw it as she started away to her cabin for her coat. There had -been some concern--not much, but some--in Agnes Ertyle’s look that -first time she discovered Gerry Hull and Ruth together; there was no -suggestion of concern now. - -“Hub’s sick, poor chap,” Gerry told Ruth when she came out and they -set off side by side up the promenade deck against the cold, winter -wind. “He wanted me to tell you that’s why he couldn’t look you up -this morning.” - -Had Hub--her loyal, self-derogatory Hub--therefore arranged with his -friend to give her this attention, Ruth wondered. Not that Gerry -Hull offered himself perfunctorily; he was altogether too well bred -for that. He held out his hand to her as the wind threatened to -sweep her from her feet; she locked arms with him and together they -struggled forward to the bow where a spray shield protected them and -they turned to each other and rested. - -“Pretty good out here, isn’t it?” he asked, drawing deep breaths of -the cold, salt air, his dark cheeks glowing. - -“Glorious!” Ruth cried. “I never----” she checked herself quickly, -almost forgetting. - -“Crossed in winter before?” - -“No.” - -“Neither’ve I--in real winter weather; except when coming home this -last time.” - -Ruth glanced up at him and caught his eyes pondering her. He had -meant merely to be courteous to her when meeting her on shipboard; -but too much had passed between them, in their brief, tempestuous -first meeting. He was feeling that as well as she! The gage which -she had thrown before him was not to be ignored. However certainly -he may have thought that he would be merely polite to this girl who -had--he deemed--insulted his comrades and himself, however -determinedly he had planned to chat with her about wind and weather, -he wanted to really talk with her now! And however firmly Ruth had -decided to avoid any word which could possibly offend him, still she -found herself replying: - -“Then you think of Chicago as your home?” - -“Of course; why not?” - -She turned her back more squarely to the wind and gazed down the -length of the deck, hesitating. - -“I might as well own up, Miss Gail,” he said to her suddenly. “I’m -still mad.” - -“At me?” - -“At you. For a while I was so mad that I didn’t want to see you or -think of you,” he admitted with the frankness which had enabled him -to ask her, directly, how she happened to be at Mrs. Corliss’. “But -that didn’t seem to do me any good. So I called up your hotel----” - -“You did? When?” - -“After you were gone--about two days after. They had no address for -you and Hub had none. I asked him.” - -Ruth trembled with joyous excitement. - -“I wanted to tell you better what I meant,” he went on. “And to find -out more from you.” - -“About?” - -“What we’d been arguing. I told you that day I’d never had a chance -to talk over affairs with an American like you; and I hadn’t later. - -“You see,” he explained after a moment of thought, “it seemed to me -that the other people I met at home--or most of them, anyway--went -into the war as a sort of social event. I don’t mean that they made -light of it; they didn’t. They were heart and soul in the cause; and -a good many of them did a lot of real work. But they didn’t react to -any--original ideas, as far as I could make out. They imported their -opinions and sympathies. And the ones who were hottest to have -America in the war weren’t the people who’d been most of their lives -in America; but the ones who’d been in England or France. I told you -that day that what they said was just what I’d been hearing on the -other side.” - -In spite of the canvas shield, it was very cold where they were -standing. Gerry moved a bit as he talked; and Ruth stepped with him, -letting him lead her to a door which he opened, to discover a little -writing room or card room which happened to be deserted just then. -He motioned to her to precede him; and when she sat down upon one of -the upholstered chairs fixed before a table, he took the place -opposite, tossing his cap away and loosening his coat. She -unbuttoned her coat and pulled off her heavy gloves. She had made no -reply, and he seemed to expect none, but to be satisfied with her -waiting. - -“I suppose you’re thinking that’s the way I got my opinions too,” he -said. “But it’s not quite true. I wasn’t trying to be English or -French or foreign in any way. I was proud--not ashamed--to be -American. Why, at school in England they used to have a regular game -to get me started bragging about America and Chicago and our West. I -liked the people over there; but I liked our people better. -Grandfather--well, he seemed to me about the greatest sort of man -possible; and his friends and father’s friends who used to come to -look me up at Harrow once in a while--some of ’em were pretty raw -and uncouth, but I liked to show ’em off! I did. They’d all done -something themselves; and most of ’em were still doing things--big -things--and putting in eight or ten hours a day in their offices. -They weren’t gentlemen at all in the sense that my friends at Harrow -knew English gentlemen; but I said they were the real thing. -America--my country--was made up of men who really did things! - -“Then the war came and showed us up! I tell you, Miss Gail, I -couldn’t believe it at first. It seemed to me that the news couldn’t -be getting across to America; or that lies only were reaching you. -Then the American newspapers came to France and everyone could see -that we knew and stayed out!” - -“Last week,” Ruth said, “and yesterday; and before I met you this -morning, I knew how to tell you what I tried to that day at Mrs. -Corliss’. I’ve thought more about that, I’m sure, than anything else -recently; but now--” she gazed across the little table at him and -shook her head--“it’s no use. It’s not anything one can argue, I -guess. It’s just faith and feeling--faith in our own people, -Lieutenant Hull!” - -She saw, as he watched her, that she was disappointing him and that -he had been hoping that, somehow, she could resolve the doubts of -his own people which possessed him; she saw--as she had observed at -Mrs. Corliss’--that his eyes lingered upon her face, upon her hands, -as though he liked her; but her stubbornness in upholding those -people whom she would not even try to explain, offended him again. -He glanced out the port above her. - -“We’re picking up a cruiser escort,” he said suddenly. “Let’s go out -and look her over.” - -So they were on deck in the cold and wind again. And during the rest -of that day, and upon the following days, almost every hour brought -her into some sort of association with him on the decks, in the -lounge, or in the writing rooms, during the morning; luncheon at the -same table. Then the afternoon, as the morning, would be made up of -hours when she would be sitting in the warm, bright saloon with her -French war-study book before her and she would be carefully -rehearsing “_Masque respirateur_--respirator; _lunettes_--goggles; -_nauge de gaz_--gas fumes ...” when she would hear his quick, -impulsive step or his clear, pleasant voice speaking to someone and -Ruth would get _combat animé_ and _combat décousu_ hopelessly mixed. -She would go out to walk the deck again with Hubert--who was -apologetically up and about when the seas were smoother--or with -Captain Lescault or Captain Forraker or with “1582” (as she called -to herself the Sussex officer and once came near calling him that -aloud), when she would come around the corner of a cabin and almost -run into Agnes Ertyle and Gerry Hull going about the deck in the -other direction; or she would pass them, seated close together and -with Lady Agnes all bundled up in steamer rugs, and Ruth would see -them suddenly stop talking when she and her escort came close, and -they would look away at the sea as though they had been just looking -at the water all the time. - -He would sit down beside Ruth, too; and he would take her around and -around the deck, tramping glowing, spray-splattered miles with him. -They talked a lot; but now they never really said anything to each -other. And it seemed to Ruth that each throb of those ceaseless -engines, which thrust them ever nearer and nearer to France, made -what she felt and believed more outrageous to him. - -One afternoon, when the wireless happened to be tuned to catch the -wavelength of messages sweeping over the seas from some powerful -sending station in Germany, they picked up the enemy’s boasts for -the day; and among them was the announcement that the famous -American “ace,” sergeant pilot Paul Crosby, had been shot down and -killed by a German flyer on the Lorraine front. It chanced that -Gerry Hull and Agnes Ertyle were in the main saloon near where Ruth -also was when some busybody, who had heard this news, brought it to -Gerry Hull and asked him if he had known Paul Crosby. - -Ruth knew that Gerry Hull and Paul Crosby had joined the French -flying forces together; they had flown in the same escadrille for -more than a year. She did not turn about, as others were doing, to -watch Gerry Hull when he got this news; but she could not help -hearing his simple and quiet reply, which brought tears to her eyes -as no sob or protestation of grief could; and she could not help -seeing him as he passed before her on his way out alone to the deck. - -She dreamed that night about being torpedoed; in the dream, the boat -was the _Ribot_; and upon the vessel there were--as almost always -there are in dreams--a perfectly impossible company. Besides those -who actually were on board, there were Sam Hilton and Lieutenant -George Byrne and “Aunt Emilie” and Aunt Cynthia Gifford Grange and -the woman in gray and a great many others--so many, indeed, that -there were not boats enough on the _Ribot_ to take off all the -company as the ship sank. So Gerry Hull, after putting Lady Agnes in -a boat and kissing her good-bye, himself stepped back to go down -with the ship; and so, when all the boats were gone, he found Ruth -beside him; for she had known that he would not try to save himself -and she had hidden to stay with him. His arms were about her as the -water rose to them and--she awoke. - -Their U-boat really came; but with results disconcertingly -different. January, 1918--if you can remember clearly back to days -so strange and distant--was a month when America was sending across -men by tens rather than by hundreds of thousands and convoying them -very, very carefully; there were not so many destroyers as soon -there were; the U-boats had not yet raided far out into the -Atlantic--so fast and well-armed ships like the _Ribot_, which were -not transports, were allowed to proceed a certain part of the way -across unconvoyed, keeping merely to certain “lanes” on courses -prescribed by wireless. - -The _Ribot_, Ruth knew, was on one of these lanes and soon would be -“picked up” by the destroyers and shepherded by them into a convoy -for passage through the zone of greatest danger. In fact, Ruth and -Milicent Wetherell, who also had awakened early upon this particular -morning, were looking out of their port over a gray and misty sea to -discover whether they might have been picked up during the night and -now were in a convoy. But they saw no sign of any other vessel, -though the mist, which was patchy and floating low, let them look a -mile or more away. There was no smoke in sight--nothing but gray -clouds and the frayed fog and the sea swelling oilily up and -slipping down against the side of the ship. - -Then, about a hundred yards away from the side and rather far -forward, a spout of spray squirted suddenly straight up into the -air. It showered over toward the ship and splashed down. - -“That’s a shot,” Ruth said, “at us.” - -“Where’s the U-boat?” Milicent asked her; and they both pressed -closer to the port to look out. They had heard no sound of the gun, -or they did not distinguish it from the noises of the ship. Ruth was -shaking with excitement; she could feel Milicent shaking too. -Another spout of spray, still forward but a good deal closer, -spurted up; and this time they heard--or thought they heard--the -sound of the gun which had fired that shell at them. The roar of -their own guns--one forward and one aft--buffeted them violently. - -“We’re fighting!” Ruth cried. - -“Can you see anything?” Milicent demanded. - -“Not a thing. Let’s get dressed!” - -Gongs were beating throughout the ship; and the guns on deck were -going, “_Twumm! twumm! twumm!_” Ruth could hear, in the intervals, -the voices of stewards calling to passengers in the companionways -between the cabins. A tremendous shock, stifling and deafening, -hurled Ruth against the bunk; hurled Milicent upon her. They clung -together, coughing and gasping for breath. - -“Hit us!” Ruth said; she might have shouted; she might have -whispered; she did not know which. - -“That’s just powder fumes; not gas,” Milicent made herself -understood. - -“No; not _nauge de gaz_,” Ruth agreed. They were hearing each other -quite normally; and they laughed at each other--at the French lesson -phrase, rather. They had learned the phrases together, drilled each -other and taken the lessons so seriously; and the lessons seemed so -silly now. - -“They must have hurt someone,” Ruth said. For the first time she -consciously thought of Gerry Hull; probably subconsciously she had -been thinking of him all the time. “He wasn’t hit,” she was saying -to herself confidently now. “That shell struck us forward; his -cabin’s aft and on the other side; so he couldn’t have been -hurt--unless he’d come to this side to get Lady Agnes.” - -Another shell exploded in the ship--aft somewhere and lower. It -didn’t knock Ruth down or stifle her with fumes as the other had. -Someone was beating at her door and she opened it--Milicent and she -had got into their clothes. Ruth saw Hubert Lennon in the passage. - -“You’re safe!” he cried out to her with mighty relief. He had pulled -trousers and coat over his pajamas; he had shoes, unlaced, upon his -bare feet. He was without his glasses and his nearsighted eyes -blinked big and blankly; he had on a life-jacket, of the sort under -all berths; but he bore in his hands a complete life-suit with big -boots into which one stepped and which had a bag top to go up about -the neck. - -“Put this on!” he thrust it at Ruth. - -“We’re not sinking,” she replied. “Oh, thank you; thank you--but we -aren’t torpedoed--not yet. They’re just firing and we’re fighting--” -indeed she was shouting to be heard after the noise of their -guns--“we must have people hurt.” - -“We’ve a lot--a lot hurt,” Hubert said. - -Other shells were striking the ship; and Ruth went by him into a -passage confused with smoke and stumbly from things strewn under her -feet; a cabin door hung open and beyond the door, the side of the -ship gaped suddenly to the sea. The sides of the gap were jagged and -split and splintered wood; a ripped mattress, bedding, a man’s coat -and shirt, a woman’s clothing lay strewn all about; the bedding -smouldered and from under it a hand projected--a man’s hand. It -clasped and opened convulsively; Ruth stopped and grasped the hand; -it caught hers very tight and, still holding and held by it, Ruth -with her other hand cleared the bedding from off the man’s face. She -recognized him at once; he was an oldish, gentle but fearless little -man--an American who had been a missionary in Turkey; he and his -wife, who had worked with him, had been to America to raise money -for Armenian relief and had been on their way back together to their -perilous post. - -“Mattie?” the little man was asking anxiously of Ruth as he looked -up at her. “Mattie?” - -Mattie, Ruth knew, must have been his wife; and she turned back the -bedding beyond him. - -“She’s gone,” Ruth told him, mercifully thrusting him back as he -tried to turn about. “She’s gone where you are going.” - -The little missionary’s eyes closed. “The order for all moneys is in -my pocket. Luke VI, 27,” his lips murmured. “Luke VI, 27 and 35.” - -The hand which again was holding Ruth’s and which had been so strong -the instant before, was quiet now. “The sixth chapter of the gospel -according to St. Luke and the twenty-seventh verse,” the little -man’s voice murmured, “But I say unto you which hear, Love your -enemies.” - -Ruth covered his face decently with the sheet; and, rising, she -grasped the jagged edges of the hole blown by the German shell in -the side of the ship; and she stared out it. A mile and a half away; -two miles or more perhaps--she could not tell--but at any rate just -where the fringe of the mist stopped sight, she saw a long, low -shape scudding over the swell of the sea; puffs of haze of a -different quality hung over it, cleared and hung again. Ruth -understood that these were the gases from guns firing--the guns -which had sent that shell which had slain in their beds the little -Armenian missionary and his wife, the guns which were sending the -shells now bursting aboard the _Ribot_ further below and more -astern. Ruth gazed at the U-boat aghast with fury--fury and loathing -beyond any feeling which she could have imagined. She had supposed -she had known full loathing when she learned of the first deeds done -in Termonde and Louvain; then she had thought, when the Germans sank -the _Lusitania_, that it was utterly impossible for her to detest -fellow-men more than those responsible. But now she knew that any -passion previously stirred within her was only the weak and vacuous -reaction to a tale which was told. She had viewed her first dead -slain by a fellow-man; and amazing, all overwhelming instincts--an -urge to kill, kill in return, kill in punishment, kill in -revenge--possessed her. She had not meant to kill before. She had -thought of saving life--saving the Belgians from more barbarities, -saving the lives of those at sea; she had thought of her task ahead, -and of the risks she was to run, as saving the lives of American and -British and French soldiers. For the first time she thought of -herself as an instrument to kill--kill Germans, many, many Germans; -all that she could. - -Someone had come into the wreck of that cabin behind her now. A -steward, probably; or perhaps Hubert Lennon, who had found her -again. She did not turn but continued to stare at the U-boat, her -hands clinging to the jagged hole made by its shell. A man’s hand -caught her shoulder and a voice spoke to her--Gerry Hull’s voice. - -“Come with me,” he was saying to her. “You cannot stay here; come to -a safer place.” - -“A safer place!” she repeated to him. “How can we help to kill them -on that boat?” she cried to him. - -He was undoing her fingers, by main strength, from their clutch at -the jagged iron of the shell hole. He was very calm and quiet and -strong; and he was controlling her as though she were a child. - -“They’re four thousand yards off,” he said to her. “That one there -and another on the other side. It’s just begun to fire.” - -Some of the shells which had been striking, Ruth realized now, had -burst on the other side of the _Ribot_. - -“Yes,” she said. - -“We’ve signaled we’re attacked,” he told her. He had both her hands -free; and he bound her arms to her body with his arms. “We’ve an -answer, and destroyers are coming. But they can’t get up before an -hour or two; so we’ve a long fight on. You must come below.” - -He was half carrying her, ignominiously; and it came to Ruth that, -before seeking her, he had gone to Agnes Ertyle; but she had not -delayed him because she was used to being under fire, used to seeing -those slain by fellow-men; used to knowing what she could and could -not do. - -“I’ll go where--I should,” Ruth promised, looking up at him; and he -released her. - -He pointed her toward a companionway where steps had led downward a -few minutes before; but now they were broken and smoke at that -moment was beginning to pour up. He turned and led her off to the -right; but a shell struck before them there and hurled them back -with the shock of its detonation. It skewed around a sheet of steel -which had been a partition wall between two cabins; it blew down -doors and strewed débris of all sorts down upon them. Another shell, -striking aft, choked and closed escape in the other direction. Gerry -Hull threw himself against the sheet of thin steel which the shell -so swiftly and easily had spread over the passage; but all his -strength could not budge it. He turned back to Ruth and looked her -over. - -“All right?” he asked her. - -“You are too?” - -He turned from her and gazed through the side of the ship. “They’ve -got our range pretty well, I should say. They’re still firing both -their guns, and we don’t seem to be hitting much.” - -He tried again to bend back the sheet of steel which penned them in -the passage, but with effort as vain as before. - -“I guess we stay here for a while,” he said when he desisted. “If we -don’t get help and it looks like we’re going to sink, we can always -dive through there into the sea.” - -A shell smashed in below and a few rods forward and burst with -terrific detonation. - -“Huns seem to like this part of the ship,” he said when the shock -was past. - -“That started something burning just below,” Ruth said. - -Throughout the ship again, between the concussion of the striking -shells and the firing of the _Ribot’s_ guns, alarm gongs were going. - -A woman screamed; men’s shouts came in answer. The rush of the -_Ribot_ through the water, which had been swift and steady since the -start of the fight, suddenly swerved and the ship veered off to the -right. - -“What’s that?” Ruth said. - -“We may be zigzagging to dodge torpedoes,” Gerry Hull said. “Or it -may be that our helm is shot away and we can’t steer; or we may be -changing course to charge a sub in close.” - -A detonation closer than any before quite stunned Ruth for seconds -or minutes or longer--she did not know. Only when she came to -herself slowly, she was alone behind the sheet of steel. Gerry Hull -was gone. - - - - -CHAPTER VII: “ONE OF OUR OWN!” - - -The deck floor just beyond her, where he had been, was gone; or -rather--as she saw now through the smoke--it slanted steeply down -like a chute into a chasm of indefinite depth from which the heavy, -stifling smoke was pouring. A draft sucked the smoke out of the -shattered side of the ship over the sea and gave Ruth cleaner air to -breathe for seconds at a time. Gerry Hull must have been hurled into -that chasm when that last detonation blew away the floor; or else he -must have flung himself into the sea. - -Ruth called his name, shouting first into the smoke column and then, -creeping down to the shell hole in the side, she thrust her head out -and gazed at the sea. Wreckage from the upper deck--wooden chairs, -bits of canvas--swept backwards; she saw no one swimming. The splash -of the waves dashed upon her, the ship was rushing onward, but not -so swiftly as before, and with a distinct change in the thrust of -the engines and with a strange sensation of strain on the ship. Only -one engine was going, Ruth decided--the port engine; it was being -forced faster and faster to do the work of both and the rudder was -pulled against the swerve of the port screw to keep the vessel from -swinging in a circle. - -The guns on deck were firing steadily, it seemed; but the German -submarine, which Ruth could see and which had begun to drop behind -when the _Ribot_ was racing with both engines, was drawing up -abreast again with both its big rifles firing. But the _Ribot’s_ -guns, if they had not yet hit that U-boat, at least had driven her -away; for, though she came up abreast, the German kept farther off -than before; and while Ruth watched, she heard a sudden, wild cheer -from the deck; French shells had gone home somewhere on that U-boat -or upon the other which Ruth could not see. - -Smoke continued to sweep by Ruth, engulfing her for long moments, -but the fire was far enough below not to immediately threaten her. -So for the minute she was as safe as she could be anywhere upon that -long flank of the ship at which the U-boats were firing. At any -instant, a shell might obliterate her; but she could not influence -that by any thought or action of her own. So she thought no more -about it. She could possibly influence the fate of Gerry Hull. He -had been flung down that chute of the deck floor, she thought; the -shell might have killed him; it might only have wounded or stunned -him. In that case, he must be lying helpless down there where the -flames were. She took long breaths of sea air and crept back and -called again into the smoke; she thought she heard a man’s cry in -response; Gerry Hull’s voice. She returned to the hole in the side -of the ship and let the waves drench her face and her hair; she -caught up her skirt and soaked it in the splash of the sea. - -The firing of the guns was keeping up all this time; the shock of -shells bursting aboard the ship also continued. But the tug and -thrust of the single engine had stopped; the vessel vibrated only at -the firing of its own guns or at the detonation of a German shell. - -Ruth took a towel which she found at her hand--she was in the wreck -of someone’s cabin--and, after soaking it, she bound it about her -head and crept back through the smoke to where the steel chute of -the floor slanted sheer. - -She dropped and fell upon a heap of sharp, shattered things which -cut her ankles and stumbled her over on hands and knees upon débris, -not flaming itself, but warm from a fire which burned lower. She -lifted the towel from her eyes to try to see; but the smoke blinded -her; she could not breathe; and she bound the towel again and -crawled off the heap of smoldering things upon a linoleum. She heard -a moan; but she could not find anyone in the smoke, though she -called thickly several times. A current of air was sweeping over the -floor and, following it, she came to a huge rent in the ship’s side -where water washed in and out as the vessel rolled. The water had -ceased to move from bow to stern; the vessel was merely drifting. A -man floated, face downward, upon a wave which washed him almost to -the ship’s side. Ruth reached out to seize him; she touched his -shoulder--a blue-clad shoulder, the uniform of the French; but she -could get no hold; the sea drew him slowly away. - -“Gerry Hull! Gerry!” she called, as though that form in the French -coat, with head under the water, could hear. The next wash brought -it back toward the ship; but also drifted it farther to the stern. -Now Ruth found among the rubbish washing at her feet a floating -thing--a lifejacket. She thrust her arms in it and when the waves -washed that blue-clad form nearer the next time, she leaped into the -sea and swam toward it and got grasp of a sleeve and struggled back -toward the ship. - -The vessel’s side towered above her, mighty and menacing; it swung -away from her, showing a long steep slant to the gray sky; it swung -back and tilted over as though to crush her; wreckage slipped from -off its topmost tier and splashed into the sea beside her. She could -see the cloud of gun gases puff out and clear; then the flash of -firing again. All the time she was thrashing with one arm to swim in -the wash beside the vessel and drag the blue-clad form. That form -was heavier now; and, as her clutch numbed, it slipped from her and -sank. She spun about and tried to dive, groping with her hands below -the surface; but the form was gone. - -“Gerry Hull!” she cried out. “I had Gerry Hull--here!” - -A coil of rope struck the water near her; men yelled to her to seize -it; but she groped below the water until, exhausted from the cold, -she looped the rope about her and they pulled her up. - -“Lieutenant Gerry Hull was in the water there,” she cried to them -who took her in their arms. “Lieutenant Gerry Hull is”--she shouted -to the next man who took her when, looking up, she saw his face. - -Silence--a marvelous stilling of the guns which had been resounding -from fore and aft; a miraculous stopping of the frightful shock of -the shells which had been bursting in the ship--enveloped Ruth. She -did not know at first whether it was because some of her senses were -gone; she could see Gerry Hull’s face, feel his arms holding her and -the rhythm of his body as he stepped, carrying her; she could hear -his voice and the voices of others close by; but all other sound and -reverberation had ceased. - -“I was separated from you,” Gerry Hull was explaining to her. “I was -coming back to try and get you out.” - -“I went down the way you fell,” she replied to him. “Then I saw a -man in the sea. I thought he was you. I tried to get him.” - -She was silent for a few moments while he carried her; the miracle -of stillness continued; but it was a great effort for her to speak. - -“I would have done it for anyone.” - -“I know you would,” he said to her. - -“You’ve seen Hubert?” she asked. - -“He’s not among the hurt,” Gerry answered. - -She was quite certain now that the stillness had continued so long -that it could not be merely the interval between firing or between -the arrival of German shells. - -“What is it?” she asked him. - -“What is what, Cynthia Gail?” - -He called her whole name, as he knew it, as she had been calling -his. “We’re not fighting,” she said. “We haven’t surrendered or--are -we sinking?” - -“A destroyer’s come in sight,” he said. “It’s fighting one of the -Huns. Listen!” He halted for an instant to let her hear the distant -sound of guns. - -“I hear it,” she said. - -“We hit that U-boat, we think, so that it can’t submerge and has to -keep fighting on the surface. The other’s submerged.” - -He brought her down a stairway into some large compartment, -evidently below the water line; it seemed to have been a dining -saloon for the steerage when the _Ribot_ had been regularly in the -passenger trade; or perhaps it had been crews’ quarters. Now it was -a hospital; cots had been laid out and those who had been injured by -the shell fire had been brought there. They were a great many, it -seemed to Ruth--thirty or forty. She had never seen so many -suffering people, so many bandages, so much blood before. The ship’s -surgeon was moving among them; women were there--quiet, calm, -competent women. One had direction of the others and Ruth gazed at -her for moments before she recognized Agnes Ertyle with her -beautiful, sweet eyes become maturely stern and, at the same time, -marvelously compassionate. If Ruth were a man, she must love that -girl, she thought; love her now as never before. Ruth looked up to -Gerry Hull to see his face when he spoke to Lady Agnes; he evidently -witnessed no new marvel in her. He had seen her like this before, -undoubtedly; that was why he loved her. - -“I’m not hurt,” Ruth said, ashamed of herself for having been -brought to this place among so many who had been terribly wounded. -“I’ve just been in the water; I’m wet, that’s all.” She moved to -release herself from Gerry’s hold. - -“She went into the sea to save a man,” Gerry told Agnes Ertyle. - -“Let me go to the cabin,” Ruth said, as she stood a little dizzily. - -Lady Agnes grasped her hand. “If your cabin’s been wrecked, go to -mine--number twenty-six--and take any of my things,” she invited. -“Get dry and warm at once.” - -She motioned to someone who gave Ruth hot, strong tea to drink. -Gerry turned with Ruth and led her up the stairs down which he had -just carried her; he saw her to the door of her cabin, which had not -been wrecked; he saw that a stewardess was there to aid her. Then he -went. - -The stewardess helped Ruth undress and rubbed her and put on warm -and heavy things. Milicent Wetherell came to the cabin; she had -escaped uninjured, and she aided also. - -The rifles on the _Ribot’s_ deck rang out suddenly; they fired -twice; again twice; and were still. Ruth had on warm, dry clothes -now; and she ran out with Milicent Wetherell to the deck. While the -_Ribot_ had been under shell fire, passengers had been kept from the -decks; but now that the sole danger was from torpedoes, the decks -had become the safest place. - -The gun crews had seen--Ruth was told--what they thought was a -periscope and had fired. There was nothing in sight now near the -_Ribot_ but the wreckage which had fallen during the fight. Far off -to the right, the U-boat which had continued to run on the surface, -had withdrawn beyond the range of the _Ribot’s_ guns and was fleeing -away to the south, fighting as it fled. The morning light had quite -cleared the mist from the surface of the ocean and Ruth could see -the low line of the German boat obscuring itself with gun-gases as -its rifles fired. But its shells no longer burst aboard the -passenger vessel or spurted up spray from the sea alongside. Far, -far to the east and north appeared a speck--a gray, sea-colored -speck, sheathing itself in the sparkling white of foam every second -or so, casting the sheath of seaspray aside and rushing on gray and -dun again--the bow of the destroyer coming up. She was coming up -very fast--with a marvelous, leaping swiftness which sent the blood -tingling through Ruth. - -The destroyer seemed hurled through the water, so fast she came; it -seemed impossible that engines, turning screws, could send a ship on -as that vessel dashed; she seemed to advance hundreds of yards at a -leap, hurling the spray high before her and screened by it for a -flash; and when she thrust through the foam and cut clear away from -it, she was larger and clearer and nearer. And, as she came, she -fought. Her guns were going--one, two, three of them! Ruth could see -the gossamer of their gases as they puffed forward and were swept -backward; she could hear on the wind the resound of the quick -firers. Steadily, rhythmically, relentlessly they rang, beating over -the sea like great bells booming in vengeance for the _Ribot’s_ -dead. - -Ruth felt lifted up, glorified as by nothing she had ever known -before. She turned to the man who had come up beside her; he was -Gerry Hull and, as he looked over the sea at the destroyer, she saw -the blood burning red, paling, and burning bright again in his face. - -“What ship is that?” Ruth cried to him. “Do you know whether it’s -English or French or our own?” - -“It’s the _Starke_!” Gerry Hull replied. “The _U. S. S. Starke_, she -reported herself to us! She made thirty-one knots the hour on her -builder’s trial two years ago; but she promised us to make the forty -miles to us in an hour and ten minutes! And she’s beating that, if I -know speed. God,” he appealed in reverent wonder, “look at her -come!” - -“The _United States Ship Starke_!” Ruth cried. “One of our own!” - -A wild, wanton, incredible phrase ran through her; “the shame of -being an American.” And, as she recalled it, she saw that Gerry Hull -recollected it too; and the hot color on his cheeks deepened and his -eyes, when they met hers, looked quickly away. - -“They’re wonderful, those fellows,” he admitted to her aloud. He -spoke, then, not to her, but to the destroyer. “But why couldn’t you -come three years ago?” - -A cry rose simultaneously from a lookout forward upon the _Ribot_ -and from another man in the top. A periscope had appeared; and the -guns at once were going again at it. The radio, in the cabin -amidships, was snapping a warning to the _Starke_. The _Ribot’s_ -guns and the splash of their shells into the sea gave the direction -to Ruth and to Gerry Hull; and they saw, for a flash, a spar moving -just above the water and hurling a froth before it, trailing a wake -behind. Indeed, it was probably only the froth and the wake which -they made out at all certainly; but that was discernible; and it -moved, not toward them, but aslant to them and pointed toward the -course of the American destroyer as it came up. - -“They’re trying to get the _Starke_!” Gerry Hull interpreted this to -Ruth. “The Huns are leaving us for later; they know they’ve got to -get the _Starke_ or the _Starke_ will get their other boat.” - -“The _Starke_ saw them!” Ruth cried, as the guns on the destroyer, -which had been firing at the fleeing U-boat to the south, tore up -the sea where the _Ribot’s_ shells were splashing. - -“The torpedo’s started by this time,” Gerry Hull said. “Two of ’em, -probably, if the Huns had two left.” - -Others about Ruth on the deck of the _Ribot_ realized that; and the -commander of the _Starke_ recognized it too. Ruth saw the leaping -form of the destroyer veer suddenly and point straight at the spot -in the sea where the U-boat had thrust up its periscope. This -presented the narrow beam of the destroyer, instead of its length, -for the torpedo’s target; but still Ruth held breath as on the -_Starke_ came. - -Gerry Hull had thrust his wrist from his sleeve and, as they stood -waiting, he glanced down again and again to his watch. -“Passing--past!” he muttered to himself while he counted the time. -“The torpedoes have missed,” he announced positively to Ruth at -last. - -The commander of the _Starke_ evidently thought so too; for the -length of his boat began to show again. His guns had ceased firing; -and the _Ribot’s_ rifles also were silent. The destroyer, veering -still farther to the right, was dashing now almost at right angles -to its former course. - -“They’re going to cross the course of the Hun,” Gerry Hull explained -this also to Ruth, “and give ’em an ‘ashcan,’ I suppose--a depth -charge, you know,” he added. - -“I know,” Ruth said. She had read, at least, of the tremendous -bombs, filled with the new explosive “T. N. T.,” which the U-boat -hunters carried and which they dropped with fuse fixed to burst far -below the surface. One of these bombs, in size and shape near enough -to “ashcans” to win the nickname, was powerful enough--she knew--to -wreck an undersea craft if the charge burst close by. - -The _Starke_ was still leaping on with its length showing to the -_Ribot_ when two hundred yards or more astern the destroyer, a great -geyser of water leaped into the air fifty--a hundred feet; and while -the column of water still seemed to mushroom up and up, a tremendous -shock battered the _Ribot_. - -Someone shouted out in French while another called in English, -“Depth charge dropped from the destroyer!” - -“There was one ‘ashcan,’” Gerry Hull murmured. “Now for another!” - -For the _Starke_, as soon as the charge had detonated, had put her -helm about and was circling back with marvelous swiftness to cross -again the spot in the sea where she had dropped the great bomb. - -Men were below that spot of sea, Ruth knew--German men, fifty or -eighty or a hundred of them, perhaps. They were young men, mostly, -not unlike--in their physical appearance, at least--German-born boys -whom she had known at home in Onarga or in Chicago. Some of that -crew might, conceivably, even be cousins of those boys. They had -mothers and sisters in homes at Hamburg or Dresden or Munich or -perhaps in that delightful toy town of Nuremberg, which she knew and -had loved from pictures and stories; or some of them came, perhaps, -from the Black Forest--from those quaint, lovely homely woodland -cottages which Howard Pyle and Grimm had taught her to love when she -was a child. They were helpless down there below the sea at this -moment, perhaps, with the seams of their boat opened by that -tremendous shock which had battered even the _Ribot_ so far away; -water might be coming in upon them, suffocating them, drowning them -there like rats in a trap. The vision flowed before Ruth’s eyes for -an instant with horror; then she saw them, not choking and fighting -each other for escape which none could find, but crouching safe and -smiling in their boat, stealing away swiftly and undamaged to wait -chance to rise again to try another torpedo at the _Starke_ or to -surprise with gunfire, at the next dawn, another vessel like the -_Ribot_ and murder more people in their beds and fill the space -below decks with the dead and the agonized dying. - -“Get ’em!” Gerry Hull, close beside her, was praying. “Oh, get ’em -now! Get ’em!” - -No reaction to weakness had come to him; years ago, he had passed -beyond that; and Ruth, at once, had recovered. - -“Get ’em!” Aloud, without being conscious of it, she echoed his -ejaculation; and astern of the _Starke_, as the few minutes before, -another great geyser of seawater arose; another titanic blow, -disseminating through the water, beat upon the _Ribot_. The _Starke_ -was turning about short, again; but when she rushed back over her -wake, this time she dropped no other depth charge; she slowed a -little instead, and circled while she examined carefully the surface -of the sea. Then suddenly she straightened her course away to the -south; she buried her bow in a wave; with the rush of her -propellers, foam churned at her stern; she was at full speed after -the U-boat which she first had engaged and which, during this -interlude, had run quite out of sight to the south or had sunk or -submerged. While she pursued, her radio was reporting to the -_Ribot_; and the _Ribot’s_ rasped in return. - -Oil in convincing quantities had come to the surface where the -_Starke_ had dropped its charge. Of course, the Germans often pumped -oil out of their U-boats, when no damage had been done, for the -purpose of deceiving the hunters and making them think they had -destroyed a U-boat when they had not. But the officers of the -_Starke_ had been satisfied with their findings; they would follow -up the other U-boat and then return. They understood that only two -U-boats had appeared to the _Ribot_; if another came or if either of -the two reappeared, the _Starke_ would return instantly. - -No third enemy came; and neither of the others reappeared. In fact, -the _Starke_ failed to find any further trace of the U-boat which, -for a time, had fought upon the surface and then run away. Either -the gunfire of the _Ribot_ or of the _Starke_ had so damaged it that -it suddenly sank, leaving no survivors; or--as the men aboard the -_Ribot_ seemed to think was more likely--the crew succeeded in -repairing the damage done so that it was able to submerge and -escape. In this case, it might venture another attack, by torpedo, -upon the drifting _Ribot_; so the _Starke_, after abandoning the -search, put herself beside the _Ribot_. An American officer came -aboard, bringing with him a surgeon to aid in care of the _Ribot’s_ -wounded; he brought also mechanics to assist the engine crew of the -_Ribot_ in repairs and he supplied, from his own crew, men to take -the places of the _Ribot’s_ crew who had been killed. - -Ruth watched the young lieutenant--he was few years older than Gerry -Hull or herself--as he went about his business with the officers of -the _Ribot_. If any shame for recreancy of his country had ever -stirred him, it had left no mark; he was confident and -competent--not proud but quite sure of himself and of his service. -She looked for Gerry Hull to see whether he observed this one of -their people; she looked to see whether Captain Forraker and “1582” -also saw him. And she found that “1582” was the first to make -opportunity to meet the American officer and compliment him. - -“You chaps might have been blowing up U-boats for a thousand years!” - -The pounding and hammering in the engine rooms was resulting in -thrust again from the port engine. The _Ribot_ started under steam -and ran through an area of water all iridescent with floating oil. -Bits of wood and cloth scraps floated in the oil--bits which men -scooped up to preserve for proof that the depth charges, which the -_Starke_ had dropped there, had burst and destroyed a German -submarine. - -Gerry Hull had gone below to look into the hospital again. Ruth had -offered to aid there but, having no experience, she was not -accepted. So Hubert Lennon found her on deck and went to the rail -with her while they watched the recovery of these relics from the -sea. It had been his first experience, as well as hers, with the -frightful mercilessness of modern battle; he had been made sick--a -little--by what he had seen. He could not conceal it; his sensitive, -weak eyes were big; he was very pale; his hand was unsteady as he -lit a cigarette. - -“Queer--isn’t it?--queer that they should want to do what they’ve -done below and we have no feeling at all about them.” He was gazing -down at the oil, shimmering all colors of the rainbow as the waves -flickered it against the light. - -“You’ve none at all?” Ruth asked, looking up at him. - -“I had none at the time we were after them; but I’m afraid,” he -confessed with that honesty which Ruth had learned to expect from -him, “the idea of them gets to me now. Not that I wouldn’t kill them -all again! Oh, I’d kill! I’ve dreamt sometimes of being surrounded -by ’em and having a machine gun and mowing Germans down--mowing ’em -down till there wasn’t one left. But it always seemed such an -inadequate thing to do. It ought to be possible to do more--I don’t -mean torture them physically, of course; but to make them innocuous -somehow and let them live and think about what they’ve done. There -couldn’t be anything more terrible than that.” - -“We’ve succeeded in doing that sometimes,” Ruth said. “We’ve taken -prisoners even from their U-boats; but they don’t seem to be -troubled much with remorse. It would be different for you and for -men like you; but that’s because you couldn’t do what they’ve done.” - -“Sometimes I feel that I could to them. So I guess it’s a good thing -I’m going to be an ambulance driver. To fight them and keep fighting -fair and clean yourself--well it must take more stuff than I’ve -got.” - -Ruth did not know quite what to make of this confession. Constantly, -since that first day when he called for her at the hotel in Chicago, -he had been paying his peculiar sort of court to her--peculiar, -particularly, in that he never obtruded himself when anyone else -offered and he never failed to admit anything against himself. - -“It was fine of you, Hubert,” she said, “to come right for me when -the fight began.” - -“I thought we were sinking; that’s how much sense I had,” he -returned. “Gerry, now, knew just what to do.” - -“He didn’t come for me first, Hubert.” - -“Maybe not; but you wished he had; I’m glad,” he went on quickly -before she could rejoin, “that this has taught Gerry a few things.” - -It was evident from his manner that he meant “things” in relation to -her; and that puzzled her, for she could not feel any alteration in -Gerry Hull’s manner at all. To be sure, she had gone into the sea to -try to rescue one whom she thought was he; Gerry Hull knew this. But -that was not the sort of thing which could undo the opposition -between them. Yet it was plain, upon succeeding days, that Hubert -had discerned a fact; she had become again a person of real concern -to Gerry Hull. - -She dated the start of that rehabilitation of herself not with her -adventure in the sea or with the moment when he carried her in his -arms; but with that instant when they stood together watching the -_U. S. S. Starke_ come up. That rehabilitation proceeded fast the -next days when, after the _Ribot_ had repaired both engines, the -_Starke_ brought the ship into a convoy--a fleet of some thirty -merchant vessels of all sorts and under a dozen flags, belligerent -and neutral, guarded and directed by a flotilla of American -destroyers, with the senior American officer in command of all the -convoy. - -British trawlers joined them soon, adding their protection; two of -the destroyers sent up balloons which they towed; and now, by day, -British and French dirigible balloons and British and French and, -yes, American seaplane pilots appeared. And no submarine, in those -waters supposed to be infested with U-boats, once showed a -periscope. By day and night, the patrol and protection of those -American destroyers proved perfect. So by that protection they came -at last to France. - -Gerry sought out Ruth upon the last morning when they would be on -shipboard. It was a smiling, sunny day, warm for that time in the -year. In addition to the ships of the sea and air which recently had -accompanied them constantly, strange little business-like boats -approached, airplanes from the land spied upon them; and as they -drew near to the port, Ruth got amazing sight of the multifold -activities of even this still distant threshold to war. - -“You’re going to Paris right away?” Gerry asked. - -“As soon as I can get through.” - -“We’ll get a train that’ll probably bring us in at night. If you’ve -not made arrangements ahead----” - -“I have, thanks; rather Hubert’s offered to see to me; besides his -aunt gave me letters to cousins of hers who’ve been living in Paris -for years. They’re Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Mayhew; they’ve an apartment -on the Avenue Kléber. I’m to go there my first night anyway.” - -“That’s good. I’ve heard of the Mayhews; they’ve done a lot all -during the war. Then can I look you up at the Mayhews’ when I’m in -Paris? I hope for service right away, of course; but Paris is close -for our leave always.” - -“Oh, I’ll not stay at the Mayhews’ or on Avenue Kléber! I’m to find -a room with Milicent Wetherell.” - -“So you’ll carry out your Latin Quarter plan! That’s better! But -you’ll leave the address, anyway, at the Mayhews’?” - -“Yes,” Ruth promised. - -She took the opportunity to ask him many practical, matter-of-fact -items which she needed to know--particularly about the examinations -to be made upon arrival in France. - -“My passport’s almost ruined, you see,” she explained to him. - -“Why? What’s happened?” - -Ruth colored. “I always carried it with me; so it got soaked in the -sea the other day.” - -Color came to his face too; that had happened when she went into the -water to get him, of course. She would not have reminded him of it -but that she knew she well might need help no less influential than -his to pass the gateway to France. - -“Of course,” he said. “How’s it spoiled?” - -“My picture on it, mostly.” - -“Oh; that’ll be all right! You’ll just have to have another picture -taken in France and have them paste it on. I’ll tell ’em about it -and see you through, of course.” - -Accordingly Ruth went to her cabin and, after bolting the door -against even Milicent Wetherell, she got out her passport which -really had been wet by the sea but not soaked so badly that the -picture was useless. Indeed, the picture was still plain enough so -that a French intelligence officer might make out that it was not -Ruth. So she soaked it again in water until that danger was past; -then she dried it and took it with her to present at the port. - -“I’ve told Agnes Ertyle all about your passport,” Gerry Hull said to -her when she came on deck again, “so she’ll help you out if they put -the women through first. They have to be awfully careful in France -these days about spies, you see--especially now--spies from -America.” - - - - -CHAPTER VIII: FRANCE - - -Fear--so Ruth was finding out--is a most complicated and perplexing -sensation. What she had learned about fear, upon those infrequent -occasions when causes of alarm approached that queer, humdrum, -almost forgotten girl who used to work for Sam Hilton, had made it -appear a simple emotion to bring about a rational reaction. One fear -differed from another chiefly in degrees of effect; you might be a -little afraid of something--like having your skirt caught in an -elevator door when the car started up too crowded; having a rough -looking man suddenly accost you when you were hurrying back to -Ontario Street late in a winter evening, caused more alarm; and -there were other occurrences which had frightened still more. The -amount of fear you felt--and the force of the corresponding -reaction--seemed generally proportional to the danger threatening -you; but now Ruth had been through an adventure--battle--which had -menaced her life to a far greater degree than any previous -experience; and she had not been afraid, in the old sense of fear. -Emotions had tortured her--emotions far more violent and furious -than ever she had suffered; but fear for her life had not been chief -among them. Committed to battle, as she had been by the mere fact of -her presence aboard the _Ribot_, the instant realization that -nothing she could do could save her had amazingly freed her from -fear. - -Fear, then, was not made up just of a dread of death. Now that the -_Ribot_ was safely in from the Bay of Biscay, had passed the Phare -de Cordouan and was running down the broad, flat estuary of the -Gironde river to Bordeaux, securely situated sixty long miles -inland, Ruth was in no danger of death at all. If at that city, -whose roofs and chimneys were just coming into sight, the French -examiners found out how she had obtained her passport, how she had -duped and tricked people to aid her in arriving here, and if they -arrested her, therefore, upon the charge of being a German spy, they -would be making her life safe; her punishment probably would not go -beyond imprisonment for the duration of the war; it would prevent -her wild plan of going into Germany, where court-martials did not -simply imprison spies. Yet Ruth was afraid this morning as she had -never been before; far, far more afraid than when she had been in -battle. - -That meant, obviously, that she was far more afraid of failing to do -that which she was determined upon than she was afraid of dying. -Less than three weeks earlier, when Ruth Alden was drawing up -quit-claims and deeds for Sam Hilton in Chicago, such a recognition -of the fact in regard to oneself would have seemed--even if spoken -only to self--ostentatious and theatrical; but now to make the fate -of yourself nothing, the performing of your part in the great scheme -everything, was the simple and accepted code of almost everyone -about her. - -Exactly when Ruth had begun to accept this code for herself, she did -not know. Once or twice in her twenty-two years she had encountered -emergencies when one person or two--or very, very few, at -most--acted without regard to consequence to themselves; but always -they did this for the saving of more serious catastrophe to a -greater number of persons who were present; so that even upon those -occasions the highest purpose was plain self-preservation. But now -Ruth had become a member of a society not chiefly charged with -preserving itself--whose spirit, indeed, was disregard of self. She -had come from a society in which the discovery that a certain -project was not “safe” and would lead one to certain destruction was -enough to immediately end that project, into a hemisphere where the -certainty of death made no difference and was simply not to be -discussed. - -It was not from fear of punishment, therefore, that Ruth’s heart was -fluttering as the _Ribot_ drew up to the docks at Bordeaux; it was -from terror at thought of no longer being permitted to be one of -such a company as that upon this ship. - -Men were directing the passengers to arrange themselves for -presentation of their credentials to the French authorities; and -Ruth found Lady Agnes taking her place beside her. The English girl -was well known and, after merely formal inquiry and the signing of a -few papers, she was passed on. She made a statement for Ruth of the -reasons for Ruth’s passport being in bad condition; and she -mentioned what she knew about Ruth. The Frenchmen attended politely, -but they did not, therefore, take chances. They examined her -passport far more carefully than they had Agnes Ertyle’s; but Ruth -had so ruined the picture that identification by it was impossible. -The sea water also had helped to blur the signature so that her -“Cynthia Gail” which they made her sign, and which they compared -with the name upon the passport, escaped open challenge. Then there -were questions. - -The man who asked them referred to cards in an index box which, -evidently, had come across upon the _Ribot_; for his inquiries -referred largely to questions which had been asked Ruth upon the -other side. She, fortunately, had had sense enough to have written -down for herself the answers which she had given at New York; she -had rehearsed them again and again; so now she did not fail to give -similar replies. Then there were other inquiries--sudden, startling -ones, which gave her consternation; for they seemed based upon some -knowledge of the real Cynthia Gail which Ruth did not have. But she -had to answer; so she did so as steadily as possible and as -intelligently as she could. - -The examiner gazed more keenly at her now; he halted his examination -to confer in whispers with an associate; he made careful notation -upon a card. A clerk brought in a cablegram, which the examiner -carefully read. Had the body of Cynthia Gail been identified in -Chicago? Had her family found out the fraud which Ruth had been -playing upon them; or had other discovery been made so that the -French knew that she was an impostor? - -The man looked up from the cablegram. - -“You have been in France before?” he challenged. - -Ruth had thought of being asked that question. She had told Gerry -Hull at Mrs. Corliss’ that she had been in France--or at least she -had let him suppose so when he said that, of course, she had been in -Paris. She did not know at all whether Cynthia Gail had or not; but -that statement to Gerry Hull--which he might have -repeated--committed her. - -“Not since the war began,” she answered. - -“Previous to then?” - -“Yes.” - -“Upon how many occasions?” - -“Once,” Ruth said. - -“When was that?” - -Ruth had figured out several occasions when Cynthia Gail might have -come abroad--if she really ever had done so. “The summer of 1913.” - -“When did you land?” - -“Late in June; I don’t recall the exact date.” She fixed June, as -she supposed Cynthia Gail would have come during summer vacation. - -“Where did you land?” - -“Dieppe. I crossed from New York on the _Adriatic_ of the White Star -Line to Plymouth for England first; then I crossed to France by -Newhaven-Dieppe.” She had picked up a good deal on board the -_Ribot_, you see. - -“Visiting what places in France?” - -“I spent most of my time in Paris; I was with my parents. We stayed -at the Hotel Regina.” Gerry Hull had said he supposed she had been -at the Regina or the Continental. - -The readiness of these answers seemed to somewhat reassure the -examiner. - -“You have friends in France?” - -“Only acquaintances such as one makes traveling; no one whom I could -now place. I’ve letters to Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Mayhew, of Avenue -Kléber. I did not know them when I was in France before.” - -The examiner made notations on his card. - -“Report at your first opportunity, if you please, to your consul -general at Paris and obtain a passport in place of this!” He was -writing upon her passport now and handing it back to her! Whatever -reservation of judgment he had made in regard to her; whatever -orders he might give to watch her pending verification of her facts, -he was passing her on and permitting her to go with the others to -take the afternoon train to Paris! - -She saw to customs and let Hubert order the transfer of her luggage; -then she was free upon the streets of her first foreign city. Not -for long; because the train for Paris left soon. But Hubert hired a -queer old cab, driven by a white-haired, Gallicly garrulous man, who -quickly understood that they were less interested in the wide -magnificence of the modern city than in the labyrinths of the old -town with its white, huddled houses facing quaint, gayly painted -shops about irregular squares, and looming at one another over the -narrowest of mediaeval streets. - -They halted the cab and walked down the delightful defiles. Ruth had -to remember, in her raptures, that she was supposed to have been in -France before; but there were moments when Hubert left her--he -understood that she wanted to experience some of this alone--when -the incredible wonder that she was abroad overwhelmed her. She had -cabled, of course, to Cynthia Gail’s parents in Decatur; but she -wanted to cable her own mother to tell her where she was, and to buy -the pretty, picturesque postal cards, and send them to her sisters; -she wanted to write some of the wonder to all her friends; she would -have included even a card to Sam Hilton. But all that was -impossible. - -Then the sight of French soldiers on the narrow streets and the -many, many French women in mourning--mothers and widows--returned -her to the grim, terrible business which had brought her here. She -rejoined Hubert where he had been waiting for her at the end of a -twisty, shadowy little street; he had bought a French newspaper; and -when she came beside him, he glanced up at her gravely. - -“They’ve sunk a transport with American troops, Cynthia,” he said. - -“Where? How many of our soldiers--?” she cried. - -“The _Tuscania_ to the north of Ireland; torpedoed when we were at -sea. Two or three hundred of our men are missing; they don’t know -exactly how many yet.” - -The news had reached the others of the _Ribot’s_ passengers, who -were taking the same train for Paris that afternoon. Ruth shared a -compartment in the little European-gauged cars, with Milicent -Wetherell and two French women; but the train was a “corridor -train,” as Ruth learned to say, and the occupants of the different -compartments could visit one another much as they might in the -larger American cars. There was news of recent air raids upon -Paris--one raid had been most deadly and destructive; there was news -of various sorts from the French and British fronts--a little news -also from the short American sectors; for it was announced that the -Americans had taken over a new portion of the line in Lorraine. But -the report of the successful attack of the U-boats upon the -_Tuscania_ overshadowed all other news. - -It was not alone the loss of the hundreds of American soldiers; it -was the ugly threat that, where the U-boats at last had succeeded in -sinking a transport out of a convoy, they might succeed again and, -as the Germans had been boasting, they might--they just possibly -might cut that bridge of ships really beginning this month to bring -America over the seas. Ruth thrilled with discovery at how these -people here in France had come to count upon the arrival of her -people. She talked not only with the acquaintances from the _Ribot_, -but Milicent and she practiced their French upon the polite and -patient ladies from Bordeaux. - -Ruth thus found that these French women were relieved that the -_Tuscania_ was not an American ship and had not been under convoy of -American destroyers when it was lost. - -“They have the most appalling faith in us!” Ruth reported this to -Gerry when he stopped to speak with her during the afternoon. “They -think we can do anything; that we cannot fail!” - -“That’s their way,” he warned. “We’re the new ally. The British must -have done wonders to get off all but two hundred men from a crowded -transport going down in a heavy sea.” - -“I don’t mean that we could have done more,” Ruth said, “or that we -could have saved the _Tuscania_; I’m just glad people can believe so -in us. But it puts upon us an awful responsibility to make good.” - -“It does,” Gerry agreed, laconically, and went on. - -The train pulled into Poitiers--Poitiers of the battle of the Black -Prince in her _Green’s English History_! It ran on to Tours! Now the -names of even the little towns, as they neared Paris, were -familiarly full of legend and romance. - -Hubert Lennon “looked by” in the evening, as he often had during the -day; and, as Milicent was visiting elsewhere just then, he sat down -beside Ruth. - -She observed at once that something was troubling him--not a matter -which had affected him suddenly, but rather an uncertainty which -seemed to have been progressing for some time. He remained beside -her silent for several minutes while they looked out at the lights -of the little French hamlets. Finally he asked her in quite an -ordinary tone, so that the French women could not suspect any -challenge: - -“You remember motoring down this way to Blois and Tours, and then -that run down the valley of the Loire?” - -Ruth startled a little straighter and gazed out at the darkness -without answering. If Gerry Hull had asked her such a question she -would have bluffed the answer boldly; but Hubert had interrogated -her for a purpose; and he knew something of what Cynthia Gail had -done and had not done. Suddenly it dawned upon Ruth that that time, -nine years earlier, when Hubert had last seen Cynthia Gail, was not -in Chicago, as she had supposed, but here in France. - -“Yes, I remember,” she replied weakly and without looking about. - -“Your father and mother were with you, and my father--he was alive -then--and I; and who else was along?” he questioned, as though quite -casually, but Ruth knew that this was a test. - -“I--don’t remember,” she faltered. She doubted whether Cynthia Gail -had been with him on any such trip; the whole question might merely -be a catch; well, if he suspected her and wanted to catch her, -certainly he had her. Her progress from the moment of her appearance -as Cynthia Gail had been made possible--she recognized--because of -his unsuspecting acceptance of her. That had won for her -championship in more powerful quarters which, in turn, had gained -her favor more influential still; yet the whole pyramid of that -favor balanced on the point of Hubert’s original acceptance. - -So she sat in the dark awaiting what this strange friend of hers -should determine to do. - -The French women in the opposite seats conversed between themselves. -The train was drawing into Paris, they said. The rapid rattle of -railroad joints and crosstracks confirmed this to Ruth, as well as -the more frequent noise of engines passing; she could see, too, low -shaded signal lights. But the environs of Paris had become more -black than the villages of the south; this was from danger of -repetition of the severe air raids of which Ruth had heard at -Bordeaux. - -The train stopped; not at a station, nor did guards open the doors. -Everything was black without; the few lights, which Ruth had been -viewing, either had not been necessary thereabouts, or else they had -been extinguished; and, with the stilling of the train noise, a -weird, wailing moan rose through the night air. - -“A siren!” Hubert said to Ruth. The French women, too, had -recognized the warning of a raid. A blast of a horn blew a loud -staccato _alerte_; and the siren--it evidently was on some -fast-driven car--diminished in the distance, wailing. Far off, but -approaching closer, sounded deep, rolling reverberations; not like -guns--Ruth knew guns now; nor yet like shells such as had burst on -board the _Ribot_. They were aerial torpedoes, of tremendous -violence, detonating in Paris buildings or upon the city streets. -Guns were going now; and their shells were smashing high in the air. - -Ruth could see the flash of their break against the gleaming stars -of the clear, cold sky; she could see rockets and glaring flares. -The sound of the guns and the smash of the shells in the sky -redoubled; a mighty flash lit the ground a half mile or more away -across the railroad yards; it threw in brilliant silhouette for a -second, roofs, trees, chimneys against a crimson inferno of flame. - -Hubert had the window open; and Ruth and the French women were -kneeling side by side to look out and up. They could see little -lights in the sky now; they could hear, between the smash of shells, -the hum of airplane motors and the rattle of brief bursts of -machine-gun fire. - -Airplanes of defense were up there fighting the Germans--French -piloted those machines. But there might be Americans fighting there, -too. Ruth had read that once or twice American pilots had been among -those honored with the defense of Paris. She did not know whether it -was true; she had meant to ask Gerry Hull. - -A few yards away in another compartment of another car--probably in -the compartment where Lady Agnes sat--Ruth knew that he was kneeling -before a window also gazing out; and she knew that the helpless -impulse which stirred her with desire to be out there above to fly -and fight was surging through him a thousand times intensified. She -could feel even Hubert Lennon twist and sway at struggle with that -impulse; how much more was Gerry Hull’s lithe, powerful body--that -strong, rhythmically moving form which had carried her--straining -now to join his comrades there above and to strike. - -A flare of flame, not sharp and jagged like the burst of shells, nor -yet the streak of a rocket, nor like the glaring spot of a signal -light, wavered across the stars. Something clouded it--smoke. It -flung free from the smoke and dived, flaring bigger and brighter, -trailing behind it a streamer of black which blanketed both rockets -beyond and the stars; it dived on, burning. - -Ruth’s heart throbbed like a hammer in her throat. “_Chute d’un -aéroplane!_” the French women cried. - -“Fall of an airplane!” - -It had been hit! The gasoline tank had ignited; it was going down in -flames. Whether friend or foe, no one on the train could know. Cries -reached Ruth from other compartments in the car. Everyone was seeing -it as it dropped down now faster and faster, its head burning -whiter; its streamer of smoke longer and broader before the stars. -The line of roofs and chimneys off to the south, which had shown in -glaring silhouette, sucked it from sight. It had crashed; and a -shudder shocked through Ruth as she pictured the pilot. She wanted -Gerry Hull beside her to know that he was safe; her hand groped in -the dark, without her will. It encountered Hubert’s and found his -trembling and cold. - -“They’re going away, I think,” he said to reassure her. - -The detonations of the torpedoes dropped upon the city surely were -less; the guns diminished their fire; the flashes in the sky were -farther away; and the hum of the airplane motors and the bursts of -machine-gun fire no longer were to be heard. - -A bugle from somewhere blew a none-too-confident “All clear.” The -train moved on and drew after midnight into the darkened Gare du -Quai-d’Orsay. - -It composed for Ruth a far different entrance to Paris than any she -had dreamed--the dark, almost deserted railroad station as a center -of an expanse vague and doubtful under the starlit city haze. A man -who repeated, “Mees Seenthya Gaiil” and “Meester Huber’ Len_non_,” -in patient, respectful intoning, stood at the gates from the train. -He had a car, toward which he escorted Ruth and Milicent (who, Ruth -insisted, must not try to find a place for herself that night) and -Hubert. - -Several of the _Ribot’s_ men came and said good-bye to Ruth and -Milicent again and made last memoranda of how they could later be -located. Gerry Hull appeared and, in her brief moment with him, Ruth -marveled at the change in him. The air raid and the view of his -comrades fighting again and, too, this nearness of his return to -duty had banished all boyishness from him; a simple sternness -suddenly had returned him to a maturity which made her wonder how -she ever could have assumed to scold and correct him as once she -had. - -He saw that Ruth and Milicent passed the formalities at the _gare_. -He ascertained that they had a vehicle; he brought to Ruth Lady -Agnes’ farewell and offer of assistance at any time. Then, saluting, -he said good-bye and they drove off. - -Their car was keeping along the Quai-d’Orsay at first with the Seine -glinting below on the right. They passed a bridge. - -“Pont de Solférino,” Hubert said. - -They turned across the next bridge--“Pont de la Concorde!” - -That brought to Ruth’s right the Garden of the Tuileries! They were -in the Place de la Concorde; they turned into the Champs-Elysées! It -was little more than a vague wideness of speeding shadows; but -Ruth’s blood was warm and racing. Hubert spoke to her, and when she -replied she knew that if he had questioned before whether she had -been previously in Paris he could not wonder now. But he spoke to -her as if she had, calling names of the places quietly to Milicent -rather than to her. - -The car swerved into the Place de l’Etoile. - -“The Arc-de-Triomphe!” Hubert cried. Ruth bent and saw its looming -bulk; they were upon the Avenue Kléber now and the car soon was -halting. - -A single light burned in the hallway of a building of apartments -handsomer than any Ruth ever had seen; a door upon a second floor -opened and an American man and woman welcomed “Cynthia Gail” as Ruth -had never been welcomed anywhere in her life. These hospitable -people--they were Aunt Emilie’s cousins, the Mayhews--welcomed -Hubert, too, of course, and Milicent. - -Ruth lay that night in a beautiful bed of gold and blue--the most -grateful, the most excited, the most humble and -insignificant-feeling girl in all France. When she had started out -upon this adventure in America she had seemed to herself to be -seizing an opportunity ordained for her by fate and entrusted to her -as the instrument for a great deed; now the fact that she was here, -and had come with an idea that she could greatly do, seemed the most -assuming conceit in the world. - -The next morning when she went out upon the avenues in the uniform, -which now she was to wear constantly, the pettiness of her part -reimpressed itself with every square she passed as she witnessed the -throngs of soldiers--of a dozen races, of innumerable -nations--gathered for the war. She went with Hubert to the American -consulate, where she applied for a new passport to replace the -ruined one; then, proceeding alone to the office where Cynthia Gail -was to report, she accepted gladly the simple, routine duties -assigned her. - -That same day she and Milicent found a room in a _pension_ upon the -Rue des Saints Pères, where Hubert and Mrs. Mayhew called upon her -the next evening. But if Gerry Hull had inquired for her at the -Mayhew’s, his inquiry resulted in no visit to the Rue des Saints -Pères. Lieutenant Gerry Hull was transferred--so Ruth read in a -_Matin_ of the next week--to the American forces and was flying now -under his own flag. And with his return to duty it seemed that he -must have lost concern for a girl satisfied to do half-clerical, -half-charity relief work among refugees in Paris. - -Of course Ruth did not think of herself as merely doing such work; -she considered herself as waiting for further instructions from the -Germans. - -The orders which she had received from the spy in Chicago had -directed her to take up this work of Cynthia Gail’s; and only by -following these orders could she hope to carry out her plan. - -She found far more talk of German agents, and far more certainty of -their activities, in Paris than she had heard about in Chicago. The -difference was that while in Chicago the presence and the activities -of German spies was extraordinary, here it was the everpresent and -accepted thing--like the arrival of trains of wounded from the front -and air raids upon clear nights. She learned that the Germans -undertook no important enterprise without information from their -agents in France; she learned that, as in America, these agents were -constantly being taken. It was plain to her, therefore, that they -could scarcely have any rigid organization or any routine method of -reports or intercommunication. They must operate by creating or -seizing sudden opportunities. - -During the noon hour upon a day in the middle of February, Ruth left -the relief rooms, where she had been working, to wander in the -winter sunlight by Notre Dame, where bells were ringing for some -special mass. She went in and stood in the nave, listening to the -chants, when she observed a gentleman of about fifty, evidently a -Parisian, go to a pew beyond her and kneel down. She noticed him -because she had seen him at least twice before when she was coming -out of her office, and he had observed her with keener glance than -gentlemen of his apparent station were accustomed to bestow. - -She went from the cathedral after a few minutes and wandered up the -Rue St. Jacques toward the Sorbonne, when the same man suddenly -appeared about a corner and--a rather gusty wind was blowing--his -hat left his head and blew toward Ruth. She stooped quickly and -picked it up. - -He thanked her effusively in French and, observing that she was an -American in uniform, he extended compliments upon the participation -of America, which made it impossible for Ruth to go on at once. -Suddenly, and without change in his tone, he inquired her name. - -“Cynthia Gail,” she gave it, without thinking anything in -particular. - -“From what city?” he inquired. - -“Decatur, Illinois.” - -“You are to make effort at once to leave Paris to go to the district -of Roisel. Never mind the Americans; there will be few there. -Observe British dispositions; of their Fifth Army; their -headquarters; what forces in reserve present; what movements -indicating a lengthening of their front. Return here after two -weeks; not later than three. It is the wonder of America, observe!” -he proceeded in the same tone as a man went by, “that it saves not -only my country, my civilization, but even, for me, my hat! I thank -you again, Mademoiselle. _Bon jour!_” He bowed and was off. - - - - -CHAPTER IX: TO PICARDY - - -Ruth stood galvanized for a second. The man, beyond doubt, was a -German agent; he had addressed her as a spy. There was no other -possible explanation. - -When the woman at Mrs. Corliss’ had disclosed herself as an enemy, -Ruth had balanced the harm the woman might do to America against the -harm she, herself, might do Germany, and Ruth had decided, rightly -or wrongly, to remain quiet. Now she could not do so. A German spy -in Chicago was a distant, only indirectly dangerous person; a spy in -Paris did most direct things--such as setting colored lights at the -bottoms of chimneys to guide the great black-crossed _Gothas_ which -bombed Paris by night, blowing down those buildings in the ruins of -which Ruth had seen men frantically digging by the early morning -light; they did things such as ... Ruth did not delay to catalog in -that flash the acts of Germans in Paris. She knew that man must be -arrested at whatever cost to herself. - -She started after him down the Rue St. Jacques in the first spur of -this impulse. Fortunately, after leaving her, he did not gaze back, -but proceeded alertly along the street. A man and a woman spoke to -him; he bowed. Another passer-by bowed to him with the deference -shown a gentleman of importance and position. And Ruth slowed her -pursuit and followed a little distance behind him. He turned to the -Boulevard St. Michel, where others bowed to him, crossed the -boulevard and went into the Ecole de Médecine. - -Ruth halted a man who had spoken to him and inquired, please, the -name of the gentleman who had just passed. The Frenchman informed -politely, “Monsieur de Trevenac.” - -“The entire name, please?” Ruth pressed. - -“Monsieur Louis de Trevenac,” the name was repeated as of one well -known. Ruth proceeded to the door of the Ecole de Médecine, where -inquiry confirmed the name; M. de Trevenac had just entered. - -Ruth abandoned the pursuit. She was shaking with excitement under -her trim, khaki uniform and cape; but coolness had come to -her--coolness and that calm, competent thought which always -succeeded the irresponsible impulse with her. The German agent, M. -Louis de Trevenac, was not trying to escape from Paris; his -business, undoubtedly, was to remain here, and not in hiding, but -prominent and well known. If she accused him to a gendarme the alarm -would go at once to his confederates; it would be the stupidest and -clumsiest action she could take. Now that she knew him, she could -move most effectively by indirection; she need not betray herself at -all, either to the French or to the Germans. - -She returned across the Seine and went to her work while she thought -it out. She could accomplish her purpose partly, perhaps, through -Hubert Lennon. She might accomplish it more safely through the aid -of other men whom she now knew; or through Mr. Mayhew. But she could -accomplish it best through Gerry Hull. - -Accordingly she telephoned to Hubert that afternoon to meet her at -the _pension_ as soon as possible; and when he came, she asked him -if he knew where Gerry Hull was. - -He was in Paris, Hubert had to confess; he had been in Paris for two -days. - -Ruth could not help coloring. “I need to see him, Hubert. Tell me -where I can find him and I shall go there.” - -“I’ll see that he comes here,” Hubert offered, a little -belligerently. - -“Perhaps that is better,” Ruth accepted. Her orders from the Germans -had been to cultivate her acquaintance with Gerry Hull; yet, if they -were watching her now, it was better to have them see him come to -her. “But you must get him at once,” she said. - -Hubert succeeded within the hour, for it was not yet five in the -afternoon when Gerry Hull appeared on the Rue des Saints Pères, -found the little _pension_ and rang. Ruth had him ushered into a -small private parlor, where she and Milicent entertained; she saw -him there alone. - -He did not pretend that he had been about to call upon her when she -summoned him; nor did he apologize for not having called before. He -was glad to see her, particularly when it became plain that she had -sent for him for help in an emergency. - -“I have received information, which I am quite sure is reliable,” -she said to him after she had closed the door and they sat down, -“but which I wish to have used anonymously, if it is at all -possible.” - -“Information against someone?” he asked. - -“Against a man who goes by the name of Louis de Trevenac,” she said -in a low voice. The placards all about Paris warning, _Be on guard! -Enemy ears listen!_ influenced her even behind the closed doors. - -Gerry Hull started. Not greatly, for he had been in France long -enough to hear accusations--false or true--against almost anyone. - -“You know him?” Ruth asked. - -“He is well known,” Gerry said. “I’ve heard of him.” - -“I am absolutely certain that he is a German spy.” - -“How do you know?” - -“If I wanted to tell how I know, I would not have sent for you. It -was not easy,” Ruth said with a gentle sweetness which caught him -with a flush. “I thought it was possible that you would know a -method of starting inquiry regarding one without having to give -details of the cause of your suspicion.” - -Gerry nodded. “That’s possible.” - -“Then please do that in regard to M. Louis de Trevenac. At once!” - -He regarded her, conscious of having to make an effort to consider -what she asked without feeling for her. The attraction to her which -instantly had given him curiosity about her that first time they -met--attraction not merely to her warm, glowing vitality, but to the -purpose which imbued her and to the challenge of her eager, honest -mind--was swaying him. He got for a moment, and quite without his -will, the feeling of her lithe, round little form warm against him, -though she was drenched by the sea, that time he carried her. He -banished that deliberately by recalling the offense she had given -him of the criticism, as he had taken it and as he still took it, of -his comrades, and of himself, and of the great beliefs for which and -in which he lived. - -He could not possibly question the whole loyalty of this girl; he -was not even considering that as he gazed at her. He really was -watching the pretty, alluring, all unconscious pulsations of color -in the clear, soft skin of her cheek and temple; he was watching the -blue of her eyes under her brown brows; watching the tiny tremblings -of her slender, well-shaped hands; and--as Sam Hilton used to do--he -was watching the hues of light glint in her hair as she moved her -head. - -“I can try that, Miss Gail,” he said at last. “If there’s nothing -found out, there will be no particular concern for the source of -suspicion; but if what you say’s true, I may have to ask you a good -deal more.” - -He left it thus when he went away a little later; for, though he -would have liked to stay, she did not wish him to, insisting that he -must proceed against Louis de Trevenac at once. - -He did so; with results which brought him back to her at the end of -the second day. - -“What else do you know in connection with De Trevenac?” he demanded -of her as soon as they were alone. - -“You’re satisfied that he’s a spy?” - -“The French found,” Gerry said, “a most astonishing lot of things. -They’ve mopped up about twenty more besides De Trevenac--twenty -they’d never even looked into. How did you know about him?” - -The discoveries had brought Gerry to her almost in awe; and there -surged through her an impulse to tell him how she knew and all about -herself--to end to him and with him the long, every-waking-minute, -every-sleeping-minute strain of being an impostor, of facing -exposure, of playing a part. She had not let herself feel how that -strain pulled upon her, how lonely and frightened she was at times, -how ill it made her--sick physically as well as sick at heart--to -write her cheerful, newsy letters to Cynthia Gail’s parents, and to -read the letters written by mother and father to Cynthia, and to -which she must again reply; to write to the little boy in Decatur as -his sister would write; to write also--and in ways this was the -hardest--to the man who had loved Cynthia Gail and who, believing -that Cynthia was alive and she was Cynthia, was pouring out his love -to her in letters to which also she must reply and either make him -think that the girl whom he loved, and who had loved him, still -lived, and would not forgive him a single hasty word, or else that -she lived, and still loved him, and would be his in his arms again. - -For a moment the impulse almost overmastered Ruth; but then she had -the better of it. If she told even this man who might trust -her--might, but how could she be sure?--she put the direction of her -fate in other hands. If she had told him about herself at Mrs. -Corliss’ or upon the boat, he would have prevented her from -proceeding alone as she had; he would have believed her unable to -best accomplish things by herself, or he would have thought the risk -too great; or some obstacle would have arisen to prevent her doing -that not inconsiderable thing she already had done. - -If she was willing to give up now--to relieve herself of further -risk and become merely what she seemed, an ordinary girl worker, in -France--why she could tell him. But if she was to go ahead into the -greater hazards of which she dreamed, she must go of herself. - -“I could tell you,” Ruth said, gazing up at Gerry, “that when I was -on the street I happened to overhear a conversation which made me -sure that he was a spy.” - -“But it would not be the truth.” - -“No; not quite.” - -“I knew so.” - -She looked down and he saw her suddenly shiver. He put a hand -quickly upon her and then the other hand; he held her by her slender -shoulders, her round arms quivering under his fingers. His pulses -leaped with warm, thrusting waves which seemed to start in his hands -holding her and to shake his whole body. - -“What is it?” he asked. - -She raised a hand and gently with her fingers, released one hand of -his from her shoulder; he removed the other. - -“What have we done with De Trevenac and the rest?” - -“They’re in a safe place for further investigation; nothing else, -yet.” - -“But we’re going to?” - -“Give ’em a trial, of course; and then shoot some of ’em anyway.” - -“Monsieur de Trevenac?” - -“Him pretty surely.” - -A shudder jerked her shoulders together in a spasm; he wanted to -still her under his hands; but he did not. He knew why she asked -particularly about De Trevenac; she had seen him, heard his voice, -perhaps; she could picture him standing blindfolded to be shot--upon -her information. He would be her first slain. - -Gerry had been a bit more brutal in his way of telling her than he -had intended; indeed, now he did not understand himself. He had -acted upon instinct to torment, rather than spare her, to see how -she took it. - -She raised her head proudly. She’s beautiful, he thought. The poise -of that well-shaped head always was pretty; her shoulders, even -under the khaki, were pretty; they were well-formed, firm shoulders. -His gaze had dropped to them from her eyes; but now went back to her -blue eyes again. - -“Did you ever see--before--a man you had to kill?” she asked. - -“A few times,” he said. - -“The first man you killed?” - -“The first man I ever was certain that I killed was when I was in -the foreign legion,” he said. “We were advancing, using bayonets. -The Huns weren’t expecting an offensive there; it was the first year -after they’d failed in France and were using their best troops in -Russia. We found a Landsturm regiment against us--middle-aged men, -married mostly, I suppose; fathers. I saw the face of one a second -or so before I put my bayonet through him. A couple of times since, -maneuvering for position in the air, I’ve got a good glimpse at -chaps I was lucky enough to shoot down afterwards. I’d rather have -not, you know,” he confessed. - -“I know,” Ruth said. “But we’re going to kill them--kill men, men, -and more men! We have to. I’ll not be too soft, don’t fear! I’ve -been all this month among women--girls and children, too--from the -departments they’ve overrun! Not that they’ve told me much which I -didn’t believe before; but--well, getting it direct is different.” - -“Yes.” - -He was thinking, she knew, of their initial encounter; was she so -pleased and proud of the tardiness of America now? - -“I found out a remarkable thing from some Belgians,” she said, half -in answer to this unspoken challenge. “They told me that after the -Germans took complete possession of their country and forbade them -to wear Belgian colors or even rosette symbols, they took to wearing -American colors. We were neutral then; and the Germans didn’t dare -stop it; so they all wore, as their symbol of defiance, our flag!” - -“That was when everyone thought always that we must come in,” he -rejoined. He was not thinking about what she was saying, but of her. -“You’ve had more in your mind all along than just coming here to do -relief work,” he announced his thought aloud to her. - -“Yes, I had.” - -“Can I ask what it is?” - -“I can’t tell you.” - -“But you’ve been doing some of it?” - -“Some.” - -“You’re going to keep at it?” - -“If you’ll let me.” - -“You mean by not making you tell how you found out about De Trevenac -and by keeping you out of that?” - -She nodded. - -“But you must tell me anything else of that sort you know.” - -“I don’t know anything more of that sort except this: he had orders -to see that someone be sent to the vicinity of Roisel to observe -particularly dispositions of the British Fifth Army--their reserve -strength and whether there were signs that they will extend their -front.” - -“That’s absolutely all?” - -“Absolutely all--except that I think that was a particularly -imperative order.” - -“They’d be sending people all along that front,” Gerry said. “We -know they’re to try an offensive where the armies join; the only -doubt is when. I say, I’ll report for you that you just overheard -something on the street; and I’ll try to get past with it. If I -can’t, you’ll see me here soon again; and soon anyway, if you don’t -mind, please.” - -“I wouldn’t mind,” Ruth said simply, “but I’ll not be here. I’m -leaving Paris in the morning.” - -“Ho! Where to?” - -“I applied day before yesterday for field work and got it; so I’m -going to Picardy.” - -“That’s no address. What part?” - -“Roisel.” - -“Hmm!” - -Was he evolving--she wondered--the fact that De Trevenac’s order to -someone to go to Roisel had been delivered to her? - -Gerry had not got that far. He was thinking that this strange girl, -so unlike any other one whom he had known well, was evidently -determined to watch for herself the outcome about Roisel. He was -thinking, too, that Roisel was decidedly an inconvenient place for -him to visit. To be sure, it was in that direction that Agnes Ertyle -would be at work, for the hospital units, to which she was attached, -were caring for casualties from the Fifth Army; but till she would -be about that part of Picardy, he would have no errands likely to -take him there. And he wished that he had; or that this girl would -soon again be where he could see her. - -The days when he could be free from duty were few and brief now; and -with the swift onset of spring they were certain to be fewer. For -tremendous movements--the most stupendous in all human history--were -clearly imminent; men, and women too, were certain to be called upon -to die in number beyond all past calculation. - -Gerry Hull did not think of himself as one of those certain to die; -neither did he think of himself as one likely to live. Long ago he -had attained that new imbuement of being, independent of all -estimates of continuance of self, which was content with disposing -of the present hours as best might be. So he had been spending his -hours, whenever possible, with Agnes Ertyle; his next distant day -was to be with her. And heretofore there had been no other desire to -disturb him. - -Now he was conscious--not of any inclination to spend an hour away -from Agnes when he might possibly be with her--but only of concern -for this blue-eyed, light-haired, warm, ardent girl from among his -own people. - -“I don’t know what else you’re doing, Cynthia Gail,” he said both -names as he had that time he had carried her, “but I suppose it’s -dangerous. That’s all right,” he added hastily, “if the danger’s -necessary; if it’s not--well, it’s foolishness, you know. I wouldn’t -ask you to stop doing anything which could catch us another haul -like De Trevenac; but that may be more than a deadly game.” He held -out his hand to her and, when she placed hers in his, he held her -fingers firmly. “Don’t be foolish, please!” - -“Don’t you!” she pleaded to him in return; and the sudden broaching -of the passion which had been below astounded her as much as it -dumfounded him. “You take no regard for yourself--none, none at -all!” - -“That’s--newspaper nonsense,” he managed. He released her hand, but -her grasp held him now and he could not break it except violently. - -“It’s not! I’ve talked to men who know you, who’ve flown with you! -They all say the same thing; and they all love you for it; you’ve no -regard for yourself, numbers against you or anything when you’ve -something you’ve determined to do! You do it! Oh, I wouldn’t have -you not--I wouldn’t want you different. But the same need now -doesn’t exist!” - -Her fingers had slipped from him and they stood back a bit, both -breathing hard and very flushed as they faced each other. - -“We’re outnumbered in France this spring as never before,” he -informed her soberly. “It’s not generally--discussed; but, since -Russia’s absolutely out, that’s the fact.” - -“I know,” she said. “But what I meant was that you, and just a few -others, aren’t the only Americans here now. Oh, I’ve been able to -understand why you’ve flown and fought as you have, why your friends -are almost all fallen now and you, only by the grace of our God, are -left! I think I understood some of your feeling even before I knew -you and heard you speak. You and your friends whom you thought I -insulted--you, for a while, had to do the fighting for all America; -a score or so of you had to do, you felt, for a hundred million of -us who wouldn’t come in! But we’re coming now; a good many of us are -here!” - -“Many?” he repeated. “A couple of hundred thousand among millions. -And the German millions are almost ready to strike! Forgive me, I -didn’t mean to scold you ever again for America; but--oh, you’ll -see! The husbands, and fathers, and the boys of France, the -husbands, and fathers, and the boys of England taking the blow -again, giving themselves to the guns to save us all while our young -men watch!” - -She gazed up at him, but stayed silent now. Terror seized her that -she had done only harm, that she had stirred him to greater -regardlessness. His anger against her people, whom she defended, -had--as at that first time--banished his feeling for her. When he -gave her his hand again, he barely touched her fingers; and he was -gone. - -Returning that night to his squadron at the front, he wrote her an -apology; but, after reading it over, tore it up. His squadron was -stationed far to the east and south of Roisel; and there was at that -time nothing in the military situation to give him greater concern -for that particular sector. Yet when news arrived he scanned it -quickly for report of operations about Roisel. However, though he -twice got leave of a day, he did not on either occasion penetrate -farther into Picardy than the little city where Lady Agnes now -lived. - -All along the front, from Switzerland to the sea, the calm -continued; but few on either side of that line held illusions as to -the nature of that calm. Then, as all the world knows, suddenly upon -a morning the storm broke. - -Gerry Hull received the bulletins which came over the military wire -which brought him also his orders. These orders were for his -squadron at once to move and report for service at the earliest -possible moment at a certain point in Picardy--which orders, as -orders usually go, were unexplained except as the news bulletins -gave them meaning. - -The news, however, left no loopholes for doubt. The great German -assault, which had begun the morning before, already had developed a -complete break-through of the British front. The Germans, in one -tremendous dash, had overrun the first lines of defense, the second, -and the third; they were advancing now in open country with only -remnants of an army before them; and the center of this huge wave of -the enemy advance was what had been the French village of Roisel. - - - - -CHAPTER X: THE GREAT ATTACK - - -The English guns began it. - -To the world the great battle started with the German onslaught of -the morning of that Thursday, the twenty-first of March; but to -Ruth, the beginning was with the English guns--the guns of the -evening before, rolling and resounding over the Picardy plain. - -The night seemed to have embarked upon stillness in its earlier -hours. The “line”--that dim, neighboring bulwark descending from the -far indefiniteness of the North Sea to approach close to the little -hamlet of Mirevaux, to seem indeed to point into Mirevaux but for a -twist which turned it away and deflected it, sweeping southward, and -east, and south again toward the farther fastness of the Alps--the -line had been absolutely quiet. A great many airplanes had been up -during the afternoon, Ruth had observed as she gazed toward the line -from Mirevaux; their wings had specked the sky of the twilight. When -the afterglow was gone and the moon held the heavens, little colored -lights flashed frequently before the stars of the east, marking -where many night-flying pilots plied on their errands; but these -signals seemed at first not to be for the guns. The moon illumined a -drowsy Mirevaux, war-ravaged, but rewon, and dreaming itself secure -again behind that barrier of earth, and men, and guns, and gas, and -airplanes over the slopes of the east which the English held. - -And not alone Mirevaux so dreamed. Many persons of far wider -information than the French peasants and without the French folks’ -love of their own home farms to influence them, also imagined -Mirevaux quite safe--the hard-headed and quite practical, though -impulsive persons who made up a certain American committee for the -restoration of war-ravaged lands, had moved, and seconded, and -decreed in committee meeting that Mirevaux was definitely and -finally removed from the zone of invasion and, therefore, that the -committee’s representative in Mirevaux should be authorized to -expend for temporary and permanent restoration so many thousands of -francs a month. - -It was the useful expenditure of these sums which had brought Ruth -Alden, as assistant and associate to Mrs. Gregory Mayhew, to -Mirevaux from Roisel in the first week of March and which, upon the -quiet moonlit evening of that Wednesday, the twentieth, detained -Ruth at the cottage of old Grand’mère Bergues, who with her -grandchildren--Victor and _petite_ Marie--had outstayed the German -occupation of Mirevaux from August of the first year of the war to -the great retreat of February, 1917, when the enemy went back to the -Hindenburg line, destroying unremovable property and devastating -orchard and farm. - -Grand’mère Bergues stood at the door of the little cottage which, -last autumn, had been restored as well as obtainable materials -permitted. The moon shone down upon what had been an orchard; but -the Germans, before their retreat, had systematically sawed through -the trunk of each tree till the tree fell. The French, as quickly as -possible, had regrafted the top upon the stump and thus had saved a -great many trees; and the new buds upon them, showing that these had -survived the winter and would bloom and fruit again, brought to -Grand’mère Bergues a sense of triumph over the Boche. - -Grand’mère Bergues needed all the triumph she could feel. Her son, -Laurent, lay in one of those white-crossed graves of the defenders -of Douaumont at Verdun; her own daughter Mathilde, who had married a -merchant of Carnières, which was beyond Cambrai, had not been heard -of since the first year of the war. Laurent’s wife--well, she had -been a young and beautiful woman and Grand’mère Bergues either told -nothing of what had been her fate when the Germans came or else she -told it again and again in abandon. - -“They bound me to the bedpost; and one said--he was a pink-faced -pig, with the pink--ugh!--all about his head through his -closecropped hair--he said, ‘Remove her.’ - -“‘No; it is better to let her see. But keep her quiet!’ - -“So they stuffed in my mouth....” - -Ruth well knew the frightful facts; she knew that, three years ago, -there had been little Laurent--a baby--too. - -“These things,” said Grand’mère Bergues, “you did not believe at -first.” - -“No,” Ruth said, “we did not.” - -“It is not to be wondered at,” the old woman said simply. “The -wonderful fact is that now you arrive!” - -She trudged along beside Ruth through the ruin of the orchard and -halted with her hand upon the bough of an apple tree which was one -of those that the French had grafted and saved. - -“I saw them cut this down; they measure so many centimeters from the -ground; they start to saw; they cut so far through; they stop; it is -destroyed! Ah, but I shall pluck apples this August, oh, beast pigs, -brutes below all others!” she apostrophized quite calmly. “How may -those who have the form of men be such fools, too?” she asked Ruth. -“When they are here--those who bound me to the bed and their -comrades--they say that they would be the friends of France. The -English, they say, are our enemies; we shall see! Well, the English -are about us now as they have been; and look, I have come of my own -will away from Victor and Marie, leaving them alone, sleeping. Such -danger now! And you, Mademoiselle, you are younger and as beautiful -even as my Laurent’s wife--you go on, quite safe, unaccompanied.” - -Ruth proceeded quite safely, indeed; but not unaccompanied for long. -The English, as Grand’mère Bergues said, were all about--a regiment -was lying in reserve just then beyond Mirevaux; and a certain young -lieutenant, who had been one of the guests at a tea at Mrs. Mayhew’s -cottage a week ago, was awaiting Ruth upon the road. His name was -Haddon-Staples; but he was so like “1582” of the _Ribot_ that Ruth -had dubbed him to herself “1583” and she appreciated him hugely. - -Hardly had he caught step with her when the guns began--the English -guns. - -The firing was heavy--no heavier, perhaps, than Ruth often had heard -at night during the days near Mirevaux, but tonight it seemed to -Ruth to have a more intense, more nervous quality. - -“Box barrage, sounds like,” Haddon-Staples volunteered when Ruth -stopped to study the direction of the action. “Not much on, I should -say. Trench raid for information, probably.” - -“When do you suppose they’ll attack?” - -They, of course, were the Germans. “Oh, any time. That’s what we’re -out for a bit of a line on tonight--naturally. Sooner they try it, -the better, don’t you think?” - -“You’re--we’re all ready for them?” Ruth asked. - -“Ready as may be,” the Englishman returned politely. “They’ve rather -the advantage of us, you know--numerically. A good bit of a farm -here again, isn’t there?” he shifted the subject, gazing over the -level, planted fields. - -Ruth talked with him about other things; but her thought remained -with those English guns firing and firing, with the English gunners -serving them, with the English infantry raiding “for information” or -lying in wait for the certain-coming attack of an enemy having a -recognized advantage--numerically. The reason that the enemy -possessed that advantage was, she knew, that America was not yet in -force on the battle line. But for that tardiness, she had not yet -heard one word of censure from Englishmen or from the French. - -The guns were still going when she went to bed at half-past ten--the -English guns with the German guns attempting only ordinary reply. So -Ruth slept until a quaking of the ground and a sudden, tremendous -new impact of sound sat her up in the darkness, awake. She gazed at -her watch; it was half-past four. German guns now were sending the -monstrous missiles whose detonation shook the land; it was the -English guns which attempted the reply. Ruth went to her window and -gazed out in the dark toward the lines until the gray of dawn -discovered a thin gray mist over the ground--a mist of the sort -making for surprises of attacking forces upon the forces defending; -and that frightful fire of the German guns meant that, this morning -at last, the Germans were attacking. - -Ruth dressed as Mrs. Mayhew and everyone else in the house was -dressing. The thunder of the guns, the never-ceasing concussion of -the bursting shells rolled louder and nearer. - -“That must be the start of their offensive,” Mrs. Mayhew said. “Let -them try; they’ll never get through!” - -“No,” Ruth said; and she believed it. She thought of the German -attacks upon Ypres in the early years of the war; of their failure -at Verdun last year and the slow progress of the allies when they -had been on the offensive--the French in Champagne and the English -on the Somme. The others also believed it. - -“What will you be about today, dear?” Mrs. Mayhew asked Ruth. - -“Oh!”--Ruth needed the moment of the exclamation to recollect. “I’m -going to Aubigny to see that our last lot of portable houses got -there all right and that the people know how to put them up.” - -“Then come with me; I’m going to Ham,” Mrs. Mayhew offered, and -during the morning, quite as usual, they drove off together in Mrs. -Mayhew’s car about their business of helping rehouse and shelter and -refurnish the peasants of Picardy. - -While they rode in the bright morning sunshine--for the mist was -cleared now--guns, English guns emplaced far behind the lines and -whose presence they had never suspected before, thundered out; their -concussion added to the trembling of the ground; and through the air -swept sounds--swift, shrill, and ominous--not heard on the days -before. - -“Shells?” Mrs. Mayhew asked. - -Ruth nodded. She had heard the shriek of the shells which had missed -the _Ribot_ and passed over. “Shells, I think,” she said. They were -passing peasants on the road now--families of peasants or such -relics of families as the war had left; some, who had a horse, drove -a wagon heaped high with the new household goods which they had -gained since the invasion; some pushed barrows; others bore bundles -only. - -Ruth, who was driving, halted the car again and again. - -“Where are you going?” she asked. - -“We do not know,” the peasants answered. - -Ruth drove on into the little city of Ham, where ambulances bearing -the English wounded were arriving in an endless line from the front. -Mrs. Mayhew had seen wounded men--many, many of them--in the Paris -hospitals; Ruth too had seen wounded--almost two score of people -variously hurt aboard the _Ribot_. But here they came, not as -_blessés_ arrived in Paris, but from the battle field and, not by -scores, but by hundreds, by thousands! - -Ruth went sick when she saw them. She thought of Hubert, her -gentle-minded, sensitive Hubert, now helping to handle men so hurt. -She thought of Agnes Ertyle when she saw English women, as well as -English men, receiving the forms from the ambulances at the great -casualty clearing stations where new rows of tents hastily were -going up. She thought, of course, of Gerry Hull. She believed that -he was far removed from this zone of battle; but she did not yet -know--no one yet knew--how far the fighting front was extending. He -might be flying at this moment over a front most heavily involved; -she knew that he would wish to be; and how he would fight--fight as -never before and without regard of himself to check disaster due, as -he would believe, to the tardiness of his country. - -She saw a boy in the uniform of the Royal Flying Corps lying upon a -stretcher in the sunshine; he was smoking, but he took his cigarette -from his lips to smile at her as she gazed down at him. - -British troops--strong, young, uninjured men--marching in -battalions; English guns and ammunition lorries; more English -infantry and guns poured into the streets of the city, passed -through them and on to the front and more came. The wounded from the -front and the French folk from the farms and villages passed on -their way to the rear; but no one else came back. - -“The line is steadying itself; it’s holding,” the rumor ran in Ham -during the afternoon. “The Boche gained at first--everyone on the -offensive gains at first--but now we’re holding them; we’re -slaughtering them as they come on.” Then more alarming reports -spread. “They’ve overrun the first lines at points; but the others -are holding or are sure to--the Boche are doing better than at -Verdun.” Then that was denied. “They’re not doing so well. We’re -holding them now. They’re coming on. They’re driving us back.” - -Not even the wounded and the refugees, still streaming from the -front, brought reliable report; the battle was too immense for that. -And into the battle, English reinforcements steadily went forward. -So Ruth was sure only that the great battle, which the world had -been awaiting, was begun; she could know nothing of the true fortune -of that first tremendous day. She was finding, however, that Mrs. -Mayhew and she could not go about their work of restoration. They -turned their car upon the road and, inviting refugees, they carried -the peasants swift miles along the roads which they had been -trudging; let them off ten miles or so to the rear and returned for -more. - -But they urged no one to flee; they simply assisted those already in -flight and who would not be turned back. And that evening, which was -more quiet than the evening before--or at least it seemed so in -comparison to the day--they returned to Mirevaux. The worst was -past, they believed; the line, the English and the French line which -for more than three years had stood and held against the Germans, -had reformed and reestablished itself after the first shake of the -tremendous onslaught. - -And so it still seemed to those in Mirevaux that next morning of -Friday when, after breakfast, Ruth discussed again with Mrs. Mayhew -what she would do that day. They were agreeing that they should be -calm and show confidence and go about their work as usual, when they -heard the hoofs of a galloping horse upon the road. The rider pulled -up short before their cottage and Ruth, running to the door, saw -“1583”--the English officer who had waited for her upon the road -from Grand’mère Bergues’ the night before last. - -“They’ve broken through!” he called to Ruth. - -“Through!” Ruth cried. “The Germans!” - -“We can’t hold them! They’re coming on! Fifty thousand of them! -They’ve broken through--through! We couldn’t hold them!” - -Ruth recoiled upon the door. Mrs. Mayhew was beside her, calling out -to the officer; but he, having given the alarm to that house, was -going on. Ruth gazed vacantly over the smooth, replowed, replanted -French fields and the rows of grafted orchard trees toward -Grand’mère Bergues’; and her mind gave her, in a flash, vision of -the broken dam of the English line with the German flood bursting -through; and before that flood she saw again the refugees of -yesterday in flight; she saw Grand’mère Bergues with _petite_ Marie -and Victor caught again, perhaps; she saw the wounded on the roads -and in the tents of the clearing stations, cut off by the Germans -and taken; she saw the English troops--the strong, young men whom -she had witnessed marching to the front yesterday--battling bravely, -desperately, but shot down, bayoneted and overrun. - -“They’ve broken through. We couldn’t hold them! They’re coming on!” - -Ruth gazed from the ground to the sky and she saw--not in her fancy -but visually above her now--airplanes, allied airplanes flying in -squadrons from the rear toward that front which she could not see -but where, she knew, the line on the ground was broken and gone and -where the Germans, who were “coming on,” must be pouring through. -And her mind showed her in the pilot’s seat of one of those -airplanes--or in one just like them somewhere on that broken -front--Gerry Hull. Vividly she fancied his face as he flew to fight -and to make up, as well as one man might, for the millions of his -people who should have been yesterday and today upon that broken -battle line where the enemy, at last, had broken through! - -Ruth could not know then all that a break “through” meant; no one -could know; for in all the fighting in France, no army had broken -“through” before. She could know only that upon her, as an American -quite as much as Gerry Hull, was the charge to do her uttermost. - -But what was she to do? - -Gerry, arriving that morning at the airdrome to which he had been -ordered, possessed the advantage over her of no uncertainty but of -definite assignment to duty. - -During his training and his service with the French, he had piloted -many sorts of machines. He had flown the reconnaissance and -photographic biplanes with duty merely to bring back information of -the enemy’s movements; he had flown the bombing machines entrusted -with destruction, by aerial torpedo, of batteries, and ammunition -dumps behind the enemy’s front; he had flown the “artillery -machines”--the biplanes with wireless by which he, or his observer, -signaled to the French batteries the fall of their shots and guided -the guns to the true targets; he had flown, as all the world knew, -the swift-darting _avions de chasse_--the airplanes of pursuit--the -Nieuports and the Spads in which, as combat pilot, he had dueled ten -thousand feet up in the sky with the German combat pilots and shot -some twenty of them down. And it was while he was still in the -French service that the flying men began to form new squadrons for -strange service distinct from mere bomb-dropping, from guiding guns -or sending back information or from fighting other airplanes. Pilots -of these squadrons started to attack, by bomb and machine guns, the -enemy infantry and artillery and horse. They had special, new -“ships” made for them--one-seater or two-seater biplanes mounting -two or three machine guns and built to stand the strain of diving -down from a height and “flattening out” suddenly only a few yards -from the ground while the pilot with his machine guns raked the -ranks of troops over which he flew. - -It was in one of these new raiding airplanes, accordingly, and as -leader of a flight that Gerry Hull was going to battle this day. The -field, from which he had arisen, had been far back of the English -lines--so far back, indeed, that it still was secure as Gerry guided -his flight of six machines up into the clear spring sunshine. His -was one of the single-seaters; he was alone, therefore, as he led on -to the north and east; and he was glad this morning to be alone. The -exaltation which almost always pervaded him as he rose into the sky -with his motor running powerfully and true, possessed him at its -most this morning; it brought to him, together with the -never-dulling wonder of his endowment of wings and his multiplied -strength therefrom, a despite of fate which made him reckless yet -calm. - -His altimeter told that he had climbed to some four thousand feet -and content with that height and flying level, he glanced about and -saw that the machines which followed him were flattening out too and -in position. He gazed at his mapboard where was displayed chart of -the land below with notation of the battle line--such battle line as -still existed--corrected up to the last hour by photographs and -visual observations made by other pilots that morning. It was the -strip of ravaged and restored land over which he was flying; clearly -he could see the cross-streaked spots of the cities; on his right, -Ham; on his left, Péronne and Roisel. Roads spider-webbed about -them; tiny villages clustered. Immediately below he could see even, -decent patches of planted fields, gardens, meadows; he could make -out, too, more minute objects--the peasants’ cottages and their -trees, the tiny roofs of the new portable houses supplied by the -Americans. - -He could see the specks which were people upon the roads, gathered -in groups moving together; where the specks formed into a long, -ordered line, he knew that they were troops and moving toward the -battle, probably. He himself was flying so fast that the direction -of the slow movement upon the roads could not appear; but he could -guess that the irregular series of specks were refugees in flight. -Shells were smashing beside them--shrapnel, high explosive, and gas. -He could recognize easily the puff of the shrapnel distinct from the -burst of the high explosive shells. He could not distinguish the gas -shells; but he knew that the Germans were using them, deluging with -gas the zone behind the battle to a depth unknown before. - -He gazed forward to the ground where the German infantry now was -advancing--ground sloping so slightly hereabouts that, but for the -shadows, it would have seemed flat. But the morning sun of March was -still circling low, making all bright a strip where shells, in -enormous number, erupted; just short of this strip, the sunlight -ceased sharply in a shadow which did not move; the bright strip -therefore was the eastern slope of a hill and the shadow was its -western descent--a slope where, at this moment, the English must be -attempting a stand. - -Gerry gazed to the right to try to find and, with his eyes, follow -the line which ran from this hill; but he could discover none; he -glanced to the left and failed there also to discern support for the -English soldiers on the hill. Surely there must have been support of -some sort thereabouts; but the Germans had overwhelmed or swept it -back. Germans--German infantry in mass, Germans deployed, German -guns engaged and German guns moving forward followed by their -trains--Germans possessed the ground before that sunlit slope and on -its right and left. - -He looked farther away to the south and to the north; and he could -witness the truth which already he had been told. The “line,” in the -sense in which one had known the line for three years, was swept -away--first, second, third, and all supporting systems of defense; -attempts to form new lines behind the old had failed. Open field -battle, swift and Napoleonic, was established; for this battle the -Germans had gathered men by the hundred thousands, guns by the -thousand while the English here had--well, the remnants of brigades -and divisions which here and there held to the slope of a hill. - -Gerry wondered, as he gazed down, whether these men on the nearest -slope knew that--already half surrounded--there was no support -behind them. He was steering lower as he neared them, drawing to -himself a shell or two from some German anti-aircraft gun which he -did not trouble to try to place. Airplanes appeared all about him -now, above, before, behind, and on both sides; but they were, most -of them, English or French; here and there he glimpsed a German -machine; but none of these approached him to attack. For if the -ground that morning was the Germans’, the air was the allies’; it -was only from the air, from him and his flight of five machines -trailing behind him and from other similar flights of fighting -airplanes likewise arriving, that any help could reach those English -about to be attacked. - -For the storm of German shells, which a few seconds before had been -sweeping the slope, lifted suddenly; before the hill and from the -flank, specks which were German storm troops moved forward; and -Gerry, turning his head, saw that the other machines followed him in -position. In signal to them, he rocked his ship a little. Steadying -again, he leaned forward and saw that his machine guns were ready; -softly he touched the release levers of his bombs. His hands went -back to his controls and, gazing below at the German ranks again, he -put the nose of his machine down and dived. - -Ordinarily, during the tremendous seconds of the drop, he could see -nothing but the spot of earth at which his eyes were focused, -leaping up and up at him; ordinarily, sensation stopped with the -feeling of fall and the rush of that seeming suck of destruction. -But now his senses took in many things. His eyes never lost the -swelling specks of gray which were becoming German storm troops -leaping to the attack; but his eyes took in, too, the file of forms -in English brown lying waiting over the crest of the hill. - -They were scattered and few--very, very few, he saw; fewer even than -he had feared when he gazed down upon them from two thousand feet -higher. He had counted the forms of the dead among the holders of -the hill; he could not, in that flash of vision, see that the many, -many were dead; he could see only that, as he dropped down above -them, few of the forms were moving. They were drawing together in -little groups with bayonets flashing in the sunshine, drawing -together in tens and scores and half hundreds for last desperate -defense of the hill against the thousands coming to take it. - -The puffing jets of German machine-gun fire, enfilading the hill -from the right and from the left, shone over the ground in the -morning sunshine where German machine gunners had worked their way -about to fire in front of their charging troops; Gerry saw no such -jets from the hill, though the charging men in gray must be in plain -sight and within point-blank range at that instant from the English -on the hill. The English were short of ammunition, that meant. - - - - -CHAPTER XI: THE RESISTANCE - - -But the English were going to fight. - -This knowledge came to Gerry through the rush and suck of the final -yards of his three thousand foot fall; mechanically, automatically -his hands were tugging at his controls, his feet braced firm on his -rudder bar as he began to bring his machine out of the fall. He had -come down at terrific speed with his motor only partly shut off; he -had no time, and no need, to watch his speed indicator; he knew well -enough when he was on edge of the breaking strain which his wings -and wires could stand. He slanted more directly toward the Germans -and he was very low above the ground; still half falling, half -flying--and at greater speed than ever he could have flown--he -hurled himself at them, flattening out at perhaps fifty feet from -the earth. - -He knew--not from anything which he consciously saw nor from any -conscious reckoning but by the automatism of realization and the -reflex from it which guided and coordinated his mind, nerve, and -muscle in these terrific instants of attack--he knew that German -machine gunners were firing at him; he knew that German riflemen in -the ranks which he was charging were giving him bursts of bullets as -fast as they could fire; and his fingers which so tenderly had -touched the release levers of his bombs, pulled them positively now; -with his other hand, which held to the control stick, he had -gathered the lanyard which governed his machine gun; he had adjusted -it so that the slightest tug would get the guns going; he gave that -tug and the reassuring, familiar _jet-jet_ of his guns firing -through his airscrew combined with the burst of his bombs below and -behind. - -His fingers went from his bomb levers to his throttle to open it -wider; the detonations which had followed him ceased; his hand flew -back to his lever and the bursts began again. All the time his hand -on the control stick kept tension on the gun lanyards; ceaselessly -those jets from his machine gun projected through the whorl of his -airscrew. - -He was killing men. He could see them, not as he killed them, but -some infinitesimal of a second before; very possibly, indeed, the -bullets out of those jets of his machine guns already had pierced -the white flashes under the helmets which were faces of Germans -gazing up at him or had riddled through the gray bulks of their -bodies. But blood had not time to spot to the surface; the shock of -the bullets, even when they immediately killed, had not time to -dissolve the tautness of those bodies and relax them and let them -down before Gerry was flown over them and was gone. He had taken -position, when high in the sky a few seconds earlier, so as to sweep -the length of the waves of the Germans charging; and though the -swiftness of this sweep forbade him from seeing the results, he knew -that with his machine guns alone he was taking off many; and though -he could not now look back at all, he knew that his bombs, dropped -from so close, must be killing many, many more. - -The Germans attested to that; they scattered and scurried before -him; he had no row of gray forms for his target now; to save his -cartridges, he had to stop that steady pull on his lanyard; he -pursued groups, firing short bursts of bullets till they broke and -scattered again. He was not fighting alone, of course; the machines -in his flight all had followed him down. He outflew the men on the -ground and, rising while he turned, he got view of the field over -which he had swept; two of his machines which had followed him, were -rising already; the others were still flying low, attacking with -machine guns and bombs; and below them, that line of the German -attack was halted and broken. He could see spaces where his bombs -had exploded or where the machine-gun fire from the airplanes had -been most effective and gray-clad forms strewed the ground; between -these spots, German officers were reforming ranks and getting men -together again. Gerry opened his throttle wide and, circling, -climbed a little more; and then, he dove again and gave it to these -gathering men. - -Gave them machine-gun fire alone, now; for his bombs were gone. He -could see the work of the bombs better, and sight of that work -brought him grim exultation. He was glad that this morning he was no -mere duelist of the sky, darting and feinting and dashing in, -spinning about and diving high in the heavens to shoot down just one -enemy; here he had led an attack which had killed or disabled -hundreds. This was no day to glory in single combat. - -He had overflown again the men on the ground and, climbing once -more, he got view of the crest of the slope. It was gray! Gray-clad -men were swarming all over it; gray--Germans! Brown men battled -them; bayonets glinted in the sun; the brown men dropped; gray men -toppled, too; but there were more of the gray all about. How they -had got up there, Gerry could not tell; they might be some of those -in the waves at which he had fired and who had gone on; they might -be a different battalion which had charged in from the flank. They -were there; they had taken the hill; they were slaying the last of -the English. Gerry saw the swirls of the brown and gray where a few -survivors, surrounded, were fighting hand to hand to the last. He -forced down the nose of his machine and dropped at them; he let go -one burst of bullets into the gray; let go another and now, as he -pulled on his lanyard, the airscrew before him whirled clear; the -jets did not project through it; his machine guns were silent; their -ammunition was spent. - -He had a mad impulse, when he realized this, to swerve lower and -make himself and his machine a mighty projectile to scythe those -German heads with the edges of his wings; he could kill--he was -calculating, in one of those flashes which consume no reckonable -time, the number of gray men he could hope to kill. Ten or a dozen, -at most; and he had just slain--and therefore again that day might -slay--a hundred. But that instinct did not decide him. Among the -gray men, in the only groups upon which he could thus drop, were -brown men, so with his free hand he pulled out his automatic pistol -and, as he flew barely above the helmets of the men in the mêlée, he -emptied the magazine. - -English soldiers glanced up at him; ten feet below him were English -boys, doomed, surrounded but fighting. It struck shame through Gerry -the next moment when he was rising clear and safe that a few seconds -before he could have been almost within hand reach of those English -boys fighting to the end on the ground; that, indeed, he had for a -moment fought with them and then he had deserted them to their death -while he had flown free. He looked back, half banking his machine -about; but already the battle upon that hill crest was over; the -last of the English were killed. Gerry could return only to avenge -them; and the way to avenge was with refilled bomb racks and -machine-gun magazines. - -That dive to the top of the hill had separated him from the other -machines in his flight except one which was following him on his -return to the airdrome for ammunition and bombs. Gerry, gazing down, -found disorganization more visible than when he had flown to the -front. He could see the English troops, whom he had viewed advancing -upon the roads, spreading out and forming a line of resistance; but -he could better realize how few these English were for the needs of -this mighty emergency. They were taking positions, not with any -possible hope of holding them against the German masses but only -with determination to fight to delay the enemy a little as Gerry had -just seen some of them fight. - -He sighted his field and he swooped down upon it, leaping out as -soon as he stopped. He saw that, as he had suspected, rifle or -machine-gun bullets had gone through his wings; but they had not -pierced spars or struts; his wires were tight. While men refilled -his bomb racks and magazines and gave him fuel, he reported what he -had seen and received new orders. - -His superiors recognized that the disaster, instead of lessening, -was growing greater each hour. Powerful French and English reserves -were on the way but they were still distant; meanwhile the local -reserves were being used up. The English were gathering together and -throwing in anyone and everyone to try to delay the German advance; -there were kilometers where only this scratch army offered -resistance--sutlers, supply men, and cooks armed with rifles and -machine guns fighting beside Chinese coolies impressed into a -fighting line. - -Gerry passed a word with an English pilot whom he knew well and who -was just back from over another part of the battle field. - -“Hello, Hull! Your people rather getting into it over my way!” - -“Who? How?” Gerry called. - -“One of your engineer regiments were working behind the lines; line -came back on ’em. They grabbed guns and went in and gave it to the -Huns! Should have seen ’em. Can yet; they’re keeping at it.” - -The blood tingled hotter in Gerry’s veins; his people were fighting! -His countrymen, other than the few who from the first had been -fighting in the foreign legion or scattered in Canadian regiments or -here and there in the flying forces, were having part in this -battle! No great part, at that; and only an accidental part. Simply -a regiment of American engineers, who had been on construction work -for the British Fifth Army, had thrown down their shovels and tools, -grabbed guns, and gone in. - -“You’ve some good girls--some awfully good girls out that way, too!” -the English pilot cried. - -Gerry was in his seat and starting his motor so he just heard that; -he rose from the field and for several moments all his conscious -attention was given to catching proper formation with the machines -returning along with him to the battle; but subconsciously his mind -was going to those girls, the American girls--those “awfully good” -girls out that way. He did not know what they might be doing this -day--what it was which won from the English pilot the praise in his -voice. Gerry had known that American girls had been out “that way,” -he had known about the Smith College girls, particularly--the score -or so who called themselves the Smith College Relief Unit and who, -he understood, had been supplying the poor peasants and looking -after old people and children and doing all sorts of practical and -useful things in little villages about Nesle and Ham. He did not -know any of those girls; but he did know Cynthia Gail; and now, as -he found himself in flight formation and flying evenly, thought of -her emerged more vividly than it had previously upon that morning. - -When the news had reached him far away on the evening before that -the Germans had broken through in that neighborhood where she was, -he had visualized her in his fears as a helpless victim before the -enemy’s advance. The instincts she had stirred in him were to hurry -him to her protection; that morning as he had looked down upon the -refugees on the roads, mentally he had put her among the multitude -fleeing and to be defended. But the shout of the English pilot had -made Gerry think of her as one of those protecting--not precisely a -combatant, perhaps, but certainly no mere non-combatant. - -Of course the English pilot had not mentioned Cynthia Gail; but -Gerry knew that if American girls were proving themselves that -morning, Cynthia Gail was one of them. He had been able, in vivid -moments, to see Agnes Ertyle; for he knew exactly what she would be -doing; but his imagination had failed to bring before him Cynthia -Gail. In the subconscious considerations which through the violence -of his physical actions dwelt on such ideas, this failure had seemed -proof that Agnes Ertyle alone stirred the deepest within him; but -now those visions of the unseen which came quite unbidden and which -he could not control showed him again and again the smooth-skinned, -well-formed face with the blue, brave eyes under thoughtful brows, -and the slender, rounded figure of the girl whom he knew as Cynthia -Gail. And whereas previously he had merely included her among the -many in peril, now dismay for her particularly throbbed through him. - -Her words when they last were together--“A score or so of you felt -you had to do the fighting for a hundred million of us; but you -haven’t now, for we’re coming; a good many of us are here”--no -longer seemed a mere appeal to him to spare himself; it told him -that she was among those on the ground endeavoring to govern the -fate of this day. - -He sighted, before and below, a road where German guns were being -rushed forward; dove down upon them, leading his flight again and -bombed the guns, machine-gunned the artillerymen; he bombed a supply -train of motor lorries; he flew over and machine-gunned two motor -cars with German officers and saw one of the cars overturn. But -German combat pilots were appearing in force all about; Gerry gazed -up and saw a big, black-crossed two-seater accompanied by two -single-seaters maneuvering to dive down upon him. - -He swerved off, therefore, and fled. For a moment he longed for his -swift-darting little Spad instead of this heavier ship which bore -bombs in addition to machine guns. But the Spads of his comrades and -English combat machines appeared; and the German pilots above did -not dare to dive. They circled, awaiting reinforcement which swiftly -came--triplane Fokkers mostly, Gerry thought. As he watched them, he -forgot all about the ground; for the French and the English pilots, -ten thousand feet above him, were starting an attack. He circled and -climbed a few thousand feet; he knew that with his heavy raiding -machine, he could not join that battle. But heavy German -airplanes--for observation, for photographic work, or to guide the -advancing German guns--were appearing in the lower levels and -slipping forward under the protection of the Fokkers and the -Albatrosses. Gerry went for one of these and turned it back; he went -for another--a two-seater--and he saw the German machine gunner fall -forward; he saw the pilot’s hooded head drop; he saw flame flash -from the gasoline tank; the two-seater tumbled and went down. - -He dared not follow it with his eyes even for the short seconds of -its fall; machines from the battle above were coming down where he -was. A Fokker dropped, turning over and over to escape a Spad which -came down on its tail and got it anyway; now a Spad streaked past in -flame. A two-seater--a German machine marked by the big black -crosses under its wings--glided slowly down in a volplane. Gerry -circled up to it, approaching from the side with the lanyard of his -machine guns ready; but the German pilot raised an arm to signal -helplessness. His gunner was dead across his guns; his engine was -gone; he had kept control enough only to glide; and he was gliding, -Gerry saw, with the sun on his right. That meant he was making for -German-held ground. He came beside the gliding two-seater, -therefore, and signaled to the west. The German obeyed and, while -Gerry followed, he glided to the field in the west and landed. - -Gerry came down beside him and took the pilot prisoner; together -they lifted the body of the German observer from his seat and laid -him on the ground. Gerry possessed himself of the German’s maps and -papers. - -The German pilot, who was about Gerry’s own age, had been a little -dazed from the fight in the sky; but Gerry discovered that his -willingness to surrender and the fact that he had made no attempt to -destroy his own machine upon landing was from belief that they had -come down upon ground already gained by the Germans. Whether or not -that was true, at least it appeared to be ground already abandoned -by the English. Certainly no considerable English force existed -between that position and the Germans whom Gerry had seen advancing -two miles away. No batteries were in action nearby; the airplanes -seemed to be standing in an oasis of battle. There was a road a -couple of hundred yards to the south, and, seeing travel upon it, -Gerry took his prisoner in that direction. - -He found refugees upon the road--patient, pitiful families of French -peasants in flight, aiding one another and bearing poor bundles of -their most precious possessions. The sight brought Gerry back to his -first days of the war and to the feelings of the boy he had been in -August, 1914, when he rushed across the channel from England to -offer himself to the Red Cross in France and when he met the first -refugees fleeing before von Klück’s army out of Belgium and -Normandy. He had seen nothing like this in France since then; and -the years of war had not calloused him to these consequences. -Indeed, they had brought to him more terrible realizations than the -horror-struck boy of 1914 had been able to imagine. So these again -were to be visited upon France! And because his people had watched -for almost three years, had kept safely out! - -His prisoner now turned to Gerry and spoke to him in French. - -“It appears,” he corrected the error he had made when Gerry had -taken him, “that you are not my prisoner yet.” - -“No,” Gerry said. “Not yet.” - -A Ford truck passed the farm wains and the miserable column of -marchers. The driver, Gerry saw, was in khaki and was a girl. She -observed him and drew up. - -“Hello,” she hailed alertly, taking in the situation at a glance. -“Do you want to get rid of your prisoner?” - -She was American--one of those “awfully good” girls of whom the -English had told him! And, seeing her and hearing her voice, he knew -what the English pilot had meant; and a bit of pride--tingling, -burning pride for his people--flared up where the moment before had -been only condemnation and despair. For this girl was no mere -driver; she was in charge of the French--a cool, clear-headed -competent commander of these foreign peasants from a village -evacuated under her direction. She had, lying in the hay upon the -floor of the truck, children injured by shell fire and English -wounded whom she had found by the road. She had been under fire; -and, as soon as she could get these people a little farther to the -rear, she was going back under fire to guide away more people. She -was entirely unheroic about it; why, that was the best thing she -could do this day. Did he know something better for her to do? - -“No,” Gerry said. “Are there many more American girls here?” he -asked, gazing toward the German advance. - -“We’re each--or two of us together are taking a village to get the -people out,” the girl said; and she named, at Gerry’s request, some -of the girls and some of the villages. - -“Do you know Cynthia Gail?” he asked. - -“She was going back, the last I heard of her, to Mirevaux.” - -Gerry jerked. “Mirevaux must be taken now.” - -“I heard guns that way. That’s all I know,” the girl said. She raced -her engine; Gerry knew she must go on. He left his prisoner in -charge of a wounded English soldier who was able to walk and he -returned to the machines in the middle of the field. The captured -German airplane was too damaged to remove; so he set it afire and -mounted in his own. - -The battle in the sky had moved off somewhere else long ago; neither -in the air nor upon the ground was there engagement near him. He was -without bombs but he still had machine-gun ammunition; he directed -his course as he rose into the air toward the hamlet of Mirevaux. - -He could see it clearly from a few hundred feet in the sky--see -shells, which must be from German guns, smashing on a hillside on -the south and shells, which must be from an English battery, -breaking about Mirevaux. These told that the Germans indeed were in -the village and some force of English were maintaining themselves on -the hill. He observed a road west of Mirevaux upon which appeared -such a procession as that to which he had entrusted his prisoner. -The English position, which the Germans were shelling, flanked this -road and partially protected it; but Gerry could observe strong -detachments, which must be German patrols, working about the English -to the northwest and toward the road. - -The English could not see them; nor could the refugees on the road -catch sight of them. Gerry sighted a small, black motor car moving -with the processions. Another American girl was driving that, -probably; or at least an American girl was somewhere down there--a -girl with even, blue eyes which looked honestly and thoughtfully -into one’s, a girl with glorious hair which one liked to watch in -the sunlight and which tempted one to touch it, a girl with soft, -round little shoulders which he had grasped, a girl who had gone -into the sea for him, and whom he had carried, warm in his arms. - -A couple of German 77s began puffing shrapnel up about Gerry; for he -was flying low and toward them. But he went lower and nearer and -directly at that patrol. Gerry could see that they were working -nearer the road, with plenty of time to intercept that procession -from Mirevaux; and, though he gave those German guns a perfect -target for a few seconds, he dove down upon the patrol. They were -Jaegers, he thought, as he began to machine-gun them--the sort whom -the Germans liked to put in their advance parties and who had made -their first record in Belgium. Gerry thought of those Jaegers, with -the blood fury of battle hot on them, intercepting that blue-eyed -girl; and when he had overflown them, he swung back and gave it to -them again. - -One of the machine guns which had been firing at him from the ground -or some of the shrapnel from the German 77s had got him, now; for -his ship was drooping on the left; the wings had lost their lift. -When he had overflown the patrol the second time and tried to turn -back, he could not get around; his controls failed. The best he -could do was to half pull up into the wind and, picking a fairly -flat place below, to come down crashing that drooping left wing, -crashing the undercarriage, crashing struts and spars and tangling -himself in wires and bracing cables but missing, somehow, being -hurled upon the engine. He was alive and not very much hurt, though -enmeshed helplessly in the maze of the wreck; and the German gunners -of the 77s either guessed he might be alive or it was their habit to -make sure of every allied airplane which crashed within range, for a -shell smashed thirty yards up the slope beyond him. - -Gerry, unable to extricate himself, crouched below the engine and -the sheathing of the fuselage; a second shell smashed closer; a -third followed. Gerry felt blood flowing inside his clothes and he -knew that he had been hit. But now the German gunner was satisfied -or had other targets for his shells; at any rate, the shells ceased. -Gerry was about a mile away from the gun, he figured; he had flown -perhaps half a mile beyond the Jaeger patrols when he came down. The -road, upon which he had seen the travel, ran just on the other side -of a slope upon which he lay; he could see a stretch of it before it -passed behind the rise of ground and he noticed a black motor -car--possibly the same which he had seen from overhead a few minutes -before--drive toward him. He saw the car halt and a khaki-clad -figure get down from the driver’s seat; it was a skirted figure and -small beside the car; it was a girl! - -The German gunner, who had been giving Gerry attention, also saw the -car; and, evidently, he had the range of that visible stretch of the -road. A shell smashed close; and Gerry saw the girl leap back to her -seat and run the car on while a second shell followed it. The rise -hid the car from Gerry and, also, from the German gunners, for again -the shelling shifted. - -The next shell smashed on the other side of the slope where the road -again came into sight; the car had not yet reached that part of the -road, so Gerry knew that the German artillerymen were merely -“registering” the road to be ready when the car should run into the -open. But the car did not appear; instead, the girl crept about the -side of the slope and advanced toward Gerry. She had lost her hat -and the sun glowed and glinted upon glorious yellow hair. The -pointer of the 77 did not see her or he disregarded her while he -waited for the car to appear on the registered stretch of the road; -but a machine gunner with the Jaegers got sight and opened upon the -slope. Gerry could see the spurt of the bullets in the dry dust of -the planted field; the girl instantly recognized she was fired at -and she sprang sidewise and came forward. - -“Go back!” Gerry called. “Keep away!” - -She stumbled and rolled and Gerry gasped, sure that she was hit; but -she regained her feet instantly and, crouching, ran in behind him. -Her hands--those slender, soft but strong little hands which he had -first touched in Mrs. Corliss’ conservatory weeks ago--grasped him -and held him. - -“Keep down,” Gerry begged of her. “Keep down behind the engine!” - -“You!” she murmured to him. “I thought when I saw you in the air and -when you fought them so, that it might be you! Where are you hurt; -oh, how much?” - -“Not much; I don’t know where, exactly. Keep down behind the engine, -Cynthia!” - -She was not hurt at all, he saw; and though the tangle of wires -enmeshed his legs, he was able to turn about and seize her and press -her down lower. For the machine gunner was spraying the wreck of the -airplane now. She was working with her strong little hands, trying -to untwist and unloop the wires to get him free when Gerry heard the -motor noises of an airplane, descending. He gazed up and saw a -German machine swooping a thousand feet above the ground. The pilot -passed over them and, diving, came back five hundred feet lower; he -took another look, circled and returned barely a hundred yards up. -This time he would fire, Gerry knew; and it was impossible to find -shield at the same time against the flying machine gun and the gun -of the Jaegers. Gerry dragged his automatic from his holster and -aimed, not with any hope of hitting the German machine, but merely -to fire back when fired upon. But he could not twist himself far -enough. - -“Give me the pistol,” he heard Cynthia say; and, as the German flyer -came upon them with his machine gun jetting, he let her hand take -the pistol; and while he lay enmeshed, helpless, he heard her -firing. - -The machine-gun bullets from above splattered past them; the pilot -had overflown. The girl had emptied the magazine of Gerry’s pistol -and she demanded of him more cartridges. He took his pistol; -reloaded it and now, when she reclaimed it, she crouched beside him -and shot through a wooden strut and the wires which had been locking -his legs in the wreckage. He pulled himself free. - -“Now let’s get out of here!” he bid. - -“You’re all right?” she asked. - -He was testing his legs. “All right,” he assured. - -The Jaeger machine gunner had interrupted his fire; and the -airplane, which had attacked, was far away at this moment. - -“I heard you were about here, Cynthia,” Gerry said. “That’s -why--when I had the chance--I came this way.” - -She made no reply as she watched the road to the rear upon which the -refugees were appearing. A shell burst before them. - -“I have to go to them!” Ruth cried. - -“They’ll scatter; see; they’re doing it!” Gerry said, as the French -ran separately through the fields till the rise of ground guarded -them. “But we’d better skip now!” - -He had removed his maps from his machine; warning her, he lit a -match and ignited the wreckage. The flame, bursting from the -gasoline, fed upon the varnished wing fabric, clouding up dense and -heavy smoke which drifted with the breeze and screened them as they -arose and, crouching, ran. The German machine gunner evidently -looked upon the fire as the result of his shots and suspected no -flight behind the smoke. The flyer, who had attacked, likewise -seemed to see the fire as the result of his bullets. He turned away -to other targets. - -Gerry got Ruth, unhurt, to the crest of the slope; they slipped over -it and for the moment were safe. The car which Ruth had driven stood -in the road. - - - - -CHAPTER XII: “HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?” - - -The French peasants, who had been fired upon and had gained the -protection of the slope, gathered about them. - -“Beyond, also, the road is open to fire,” Gerry informed them in -French; and he directed them to proceed in little groups and by the -fields away from the road. - -“Monsieur le Lieutenant is wounded,” an old man observed -solicitously. - -“Barely at all,” Gerry denied; but swayed as he said so. - -“Your car must go by the road,” Gerry said to Ruth. “You go with -them in the fields; I will take it on for a bit.” - -He meant to relieve her for the run over the exposed stretch. He -tried to step up to the driver’s seat; but his leg would not bear -his weight and he fell backward and would have gone to the ground -had Ruth not caught him. - -“That’s simply a knee twist from being bent under my ship,” he -asserted. “That shrap hardly scratched me,” he referred to the red -spot on his side where her fingers were feeling. - -“Help me lift Monsieur le Lieutenant,” Ruth bid the old peasant. -Gerry tried again to climb alone; but his leg had quite given away. -As they lifted, he pulled himself into the seat and took the wheel. - -“You need both feet for the pedals,” Ruth reminded him, simply; and -he moved over without further protest and let her drive. The car was -a covered Ford truck and Gerry, gazing back, saw an old French -woman, a child, and two men, who had been injured, lying upon the -bedding over the floor. The car was coming to the section of road -which the German gunner had registered and Gerry turned about and -watched Ruth while she drove. - -He had never seen her doing anything like this before; and the sight -of her small, white hands, so steady and firm on the wheel, her -little, slender, booted feet upon the pedals sent a thrill tingling -through him. He was a little dizzy for a moment and he closed his -eyes, clutching to the side of his seat. A shell smashed twenty -yards before them; parts of it hit the car. The shock of it startled -Gerry up; but the girl beside him was not hit nor frightened. -Swiftly she swerved the car to dodge the hole in the road where the -gravel was still slipping and settling; the next shell was behind -and while they fled now, the shells all were behind and farther and -farther back till they ceased. - -Ruth halted her car and waited for her charges to gather on the -road; all of them appeared; none of them had been hurt. The damage -done by the German fire totaled a front wheel much bent and the -radiator ruined. - -“We’ll have to run hot,” Ruth said. “We can get on, if we go -slowly.” - -Gerry attempted to get down to walk; but his twisted left knee would -not bear him at all. His idea had been to return at once, somehow, -to the battle, as soon as this girl who had come to him was in some -sort of safety. He had planned wildly, to attempt to join the -English fighting to the south of Mirevaux. He couldn’t do that now; -but, with strength enough in his leg to move a rudder bar, he could -fly and fight again as soon as he could procure another “ship.” The -only way he could reach the rear and another airplane was to -continue with these refugees and with this girl. - -It was strange that when he had been fighting and had been far from -her, he had felt more strongly about her than he did now--more about -her as a girl, that was, in relation to him as a man. He was close -beside her with her body swaying against his when the car careened -in the pits and ruts of the road. He kept observing her--the play of -color in her smooth skin in the flush of her excitement, the steady, -blue eyes alert upon the road, her full, red little lips pressing -tight together after speaking with him and drawing tiny lines of -strain at the corners of her mouth. He noticed pretty things about -her which he had not before--the trimness of her ankles even under -her heavy boots, the ease with which that slender, well-formed -little body exerted its strength, the way her hair at her temples -went into ringlets when effort and anxiety moistened her forehead. -But he noticed these as though to remember them later; his thought -seemed to store them and save them for feeling at another time; he -was almost aware of going through an experience with her which could -affect him, fully, only afterwards. In the same manner that -subconsciously he had thought about her when all his conscious -thought was absorbed in flying and fighting, now his eyes only -observed her; his soul was blent in the battle. - -He and she, and the rest, were going back--back, kilometer after -kilometer and yet encountering no strong force of English or French -in position to hold that land; and he knew that if that depth of -front was being abandoned as far away to the right and as far away -to the left as he could see, resistance must have broken down over a -much greater front. Indeed, Gerry had himself observed from his -airplane something of the length of the line where the allies were -retreating; but he had not been able, when in the air, and passing -in a few seconds over a kilometer, to feel the disaster as now he -felt it in the swaying seat of the half-wrecked truck creeping along -at the head of a column of refugees. This land which the Germans -were again overrunning in a day was the strip which the English had -freed the year before only through the long, murderous months of the -“blood baths” of the Somme. - -“Do you remember an English officer on the _Ribot_,” Ruth was asking -of him, “whom I called ‘1582?’” - -“He’s about here?” Gerry inquired. - -“No; but several of his sort are--one particularly, a Lieutenant -Haddon-Staples; I called him, to myself, ‘1583.’” - -“What do you think of his sort now?” Gerry asked, confidently. - -Ruth’s eyes filled suddenly so that she had to raise a hand from the -driving-wheel to dash away the wetness which blurred the road. - -“They’re the most wonderful sportsmen in the world!” Ruth said. -“They don’t care about odds against them; or at least they don’t -complain. Oh, that’s not the word; complaint is about as far from -their attitude as anything you can think of.” - -“I know,” Gerry said. - -“They don’t even--criticize. They just accept the odds, whatever -they are; and go in with all of themselves as though they had a -chance to hold and win and come out alive! They know they haven’t; -but you’d never guess it from them; and there’s none of that ‘We who -are about to die salute you’ idea in them either. They’re sportsmen -and gentlemen!” - -“I know how they make you feel,” Gerry said, watching her keenly -again; the road thereabouts was bad and she couldn’t even glance -around to him. “Rather, you know now how they made me feel, I -think.” - -She made no reply; so he went on. “If they’d say things out to us; -if they had criticized us and damned us and told us we were lying -down behind them, it wouldn’t be so rotten hard to see them. But -they don’t. They just go in as you say; they feel they’ve a fight on -which is their fight and they’re going to fight it whether anyone -else thinks it worth while to fight it or not or whether they have -any chance for winning.” - -Ruth winked swiftly again to clear her eyes; and Gerry, watching -her, wondered what particular experience his general praise had -called up. He did not ask; but she told him. - -“‘1583’ was just that sort of man, Gerry,” she said, using his name -for the first time as simply as he had spoken hers when she had -crouched behind the shield of his engine with him. - -“He’s killed?” Gerry asked. - -“I don’t know; but it’s certain--yes, he’s killed,” she replied. - -“You--cared for him, Cynthia?” - -“He was about here--I mean about Mirevaux--as long as I’ve been. -That was only two weeks--‘a fortnight,’ as he’d say in his funny, -English way--but now it seems----” - -“I know,” Gerry said. - -“He was with his battalion which was lying in reserve. He and some -of the others didn’t have a lot to do evenings so they’d drop in -pretty often at the cottage Mrs. Mayhew and I had where there was -one of those little, portable organs with three octaves and we’d -play their songs sometimes and ours--like _Good King Wenceslaus_ and -_Clementine_.” - -“Did you play?” Gerry interrupted. - -“Sometimes; and sometimes he would; and we’d all sing, - - In the cabin, in the cañon, - Excavating for a mine; - Dwelt a miner, forty-niner-- - -All the English liked that sort best with _Wait for the Wagon_, you -know.” - -“Yes.” - -It was a minute or two before she continued; she was speaking of -evenings none of them older than two weeks and one of them only the -night before last; but they formed part of an experience irrevocable -now and of an epoch past. - -“They knew pretty well what was going to happen to them--that they -would have to be thrown in some day without a chance. But they -talked about coming to America after the war--the mining camps of -Nevada and California, the Grand Cañon, Niagara Falls, and Mammoth -Cave appealed to them, particularly. I asked ‘1583’ once--I knew him -best,” Ruth said; and when she repeated the nickname for him it was -with the wistful fondness with which only such a name may be said, -“if he didn’t want to go back home to England and Suffolkshire after -the war. He said, ‘I’m eager to stay a bit with the pater and the -mater, naturally.’” She was imitating his voice; and Gerry saw that -it made her cry; but she went on. “‘But I can’t stay there, you -know.’ - -“I asked, why. - -“‘My friends,’ he said. ‘I’ve not one now. You fancy you’re attached -to a place; but you find, you know, you’ve cared for more than -that.’ Then he changed the subject the way the English always do -when you come to something they feel. He was with me the evening -this battle began; and he knew what was coming. I didn’t see him -again till this morning--early this morning,” she repeated as though -unable to believe the shortness of the time. “He rode over to warn -us; and then, a little later when I was getting my first party of -people out of Mirevaux, I passed him with some more men just like -him going to the firing. He knew he was going to be killed for he’d -told us the Germans had broken through; and we couldn’t hold them. -But he wasn’t thinking about that when he saw me. He just watched me -as I was working to get my people in order and, as he rode past, he -called out, ‘Good old America!’ That to me--one girl getting -peasants out of a village while he and his handful of soldiers were -going--there!” Ruth gestured back toward the battle. “Oh, I wanted -to be a million men for him--for them! ‘Good old America!’ he said. -I saw him, or men whom I think he was with, holding a hill a couple -of miles east an hour later; they were one to ten or one to twenty; -I don’t know what the odds were against them; but they stayed on top -of that hill. I tell you I saw them--stay on top of that hill.” - -“I know,” Gerry said. “I’ve seen them stay on top of a hill. I know -how it is to want to be, for them, a million men!” - -Ruth’s hands on the steering-wheel went bloodless from pressure. -“Our million is coming; thank God, it’s coming! And I believe--I -must believe that somehow it still is right and best that we -couldn’t come before.” She gazed back over the land where the -Germans were advancing; and where the English soldiers were -“staying.” - -“How could this happen, this break-through?” she asked. “It wasn’t -just superior numbers; they’ve had that and, at other times, we’ve -had superiority before; but no one ever advanced like this.” - -“They showed an entirely new attack,” Gerry said. “New infantry -formation; new arms--infantry cannon; then there was the mist. And -our intelligence people must have fallen down, too, while theirs -gave them everything they wanted. We didn’t know at all what they -were going to do, but they must have known everything about our -strength, or lack of strength, here.” - -He saw her hands whiten again with their grasp of the wheel and the -little lines deepen under her tight-drawn lips. She had stiffened as -though he had accused her; and while he was wondering why, she -glanced up at him. - -“Then part of this--” her gaze had gone again to the fields being -abandoned--“is my fault, Gerry.” - -That was all she said; but instantly he thought of her accusation of -De Trevenac and what she had told him in the little parlor on the -Rue des Saints Pères; and he was so certain that she was thinking of -it also that he asked: - -“You mean you didn’t tell me all you knew about De Trevenac?” - -“No; I told you everything I knew! Oh, I wouldn’t have held back any -of that. I mean, I haven’t done all I might; you see, I never -imagined anything like this could happen.” - -“What might you have done, Cynthia?” he asked. He had said to her -that time in the parlor on the Rue des Saints Pères that she had -come to do more than mere relief work; but he had not consistently -thought of her as engaged in that more daring work against which he -had warned her. - -“I got so wrapt up in the work at Mirevaux,” she said, avoiding -direct answer. “I thought it was all right to let myself just do -that for a while.” - -“Whereas?” he challenged. - -She leaned forward and turned the ignition switch, stopping the -motor which had been laboring and grinding grievously. “It must cool -off,” she said, leaping down upon the ground. She went about to the -back of the truck and Gerry heard her speaking in French to the -passengers behind him. - -“Grand’mère Bergues,” she said when she returned beside Gerry, “lost -for a moment her twig of the tree. I had to find it for her.” - -“Her twig of what tree?” Gerry asked. - -“I forgot you didn’t know,” and Ruth told him of Grand’mère Bergues’ -tree. “When I convinced her at last,” Ruth added, “that the Boche -had broken through and were coming again, she had a stroke; but even -so she would not let us carry her until I had brought her a twig of -the tree--a twig which was green, and budding, and had sap, though -last year the Boche called that tree destroyed. That now must be her -triumph.” - -Ruth restarted the motor and, when they proceeded, Gerry sat without -inquiring again of what dangerous, indefinite business this girl was -going to do. While he watched her driving, a queer, pulling -sensation pulsed in his breast; it associated itself with a vision -of a young Englishman, who now undoubtedly was dead, standing behind -this girl while she played a little organ with three octaves and -they all sang. This was not jealousy, exactly; it was simply -recognition of a sort of fellowship which she could share which he -would have liked to have discovered himself. It suggested not -something more than he had had with Agnes Ertyle; but something -quite different and which he liked. He tried to imagine Agnes -playing, and singing _Clementine_, and _Wait for the Wagon_; and--he -couldn’t. He tried to imagine her crying because someone had called -to her, “Good old England”; and he couldn’t. Agnes cried over some -things--children who were brought to her and badly wounded boys who -died. But Agnes could have told him all that Cynthia had without any -emotion at all. Agnes would have told it quite differently, of -course. - -They were coming in sight of a flying field. “Let me off here, -please,” Gerry asked when they were opposite it. - -When Ruth stopped the car Gerry called for one of the old Frenchmen -to give him a shoulder and he stepped down. “You don’t need much leg -muscle to fly,” he assured Ruth when she observed him anxiously. “If -I can’t steal a ship over there, at least they’ll take care of me.” -He hesitated, looking up at her, unable simply to thank her for what -she had done. - -“Where are you going?” he asked. During their drive they had -discussed various destinations for their party; but could decide -upon none. The final halting place must depend upon the military -situation, and nothing was more unsettled than that. But Gerry was -not referring now to the halting place of the whole party; he knew -that during the last minutes she had formed determinations which -would take her as soon as possible to her other tasks; and she -accepted that in her answer. - -“I’m going to Montdidier--unless it seems better to make for Amiens; -then to Paris as soon as I can.” - -“I see.” He gazed away and up in the air where machines with the -tricolor circle of the allies were flying; and hastily he offered -Ruth his hand. “Good-bye, Cynthia,” he said. - -“Good-bye, Gerry.” - -“Cynthia, when you’re in Paris you’ll stay there?” - -“I don’t know.” - -“If you do, where’ll you be?” - -“Milicent’s kept our room in the _pension_ on the Rue des Saints -Pères. I’ll be with her again, I think.” - -“All right! Look out for yourself!” - -“You try to, too!” - -She kept the car standing a few seconds longer watching him while, -with his arm about the old man’s shoulder, he hobbled toward the -flying field. Several minutes later, when she was far down the road, -she gazed back, and saw a combat biplane rise from the field with -what seemed to be particular impatience, and she imagined that he -was piloting that machine. She had passed now from the zone of the -broken front, where all the effort was to throw men--any number and -any sort of men--across the path of the victorious German advance to -the region of retreat, where every sinew and every sense was -strained in the attempt to get men, and guns, and supplies out of -the area of envelopment by the enemy. And dreadful and appalling as -it had been to witness men--too few men and unsupported--moving -forward to immolate themselves in hopeless effort to stay that -German advance, yet it had not been so terrible to Ruth as this -sight and sound of retreat. For the sound--the beat of feet upon the -road, the ceaseless tramp of retreating men, the rumble of guns and -combat trains going back, then the beat, beat, beat of the -retreat--continued into the darkness, when Ruth no longer could see -the road from the little house where she rested. All through the -night it continued till it seemed to Ruth, not something human, but -a cataclysm of nature flowing before a more mighty catastrophe which -no one and nothing could stop. - -Whenever she awoke she heard it; and through the dreams which -harassed the heavy periods of her stupor of exhaustion which served -that night for sleep, that beat of the feet throbbed and throbbed. - -Ruth reached Montdidier at noon of the next day. It was at -Montdidier, accordingly, that she first learned the true magnitude -of the disaster and first heard openly spoken what had been said -only in part before; and that was that the fate of France and of the -allied cause depended now upon the Americans. If they could not -quickly arrive in great force and if, having arrived, they proved -unable to fight on even terms with the Germans, all was lost. France -would not yet give up, in any case; England would hold on; but, -without America, they were beaten. - -And during that day, and through the next, and the next, while Ruth -was unable to leave Montdidier, the disaster grew until it was known -that the British Fifth Army, as an organized force, had ceased to -exist and the Germans, in this single great stroke, had advanced -thirty-five miles and claimed the capture of thirteen hundred guns -and ninety thousand men. - -On Monday, as the Germans yet advanced and moved on Montdidier, Ruth -was in a column of refugees again; she was obliged to abandon her -determined task for the duty of the moment offered to her hands. She -got to Compiègne and there was delayed. Roye, Noyon, Montdidier all -now were taken; and the wounded from that southern flank of the -salient which thrust west toward Amiens were coming back upon -Compiègne; and no man yet could say that the disaster was halted. - -But Foch had come to the command. - -Ruth had tried to learn from men who had returned from the region -where she had left Gerry Hull, what his fate might have been. She -knew that he had been flying and fighting again, for she read in one -of the bulletins which was being issued, that he had been cited in -the orders of the day for Monday; but she learned nothing at all -about him after that until the day after the announcement that all -allied armies were to be under the supreme command of General Foch. -It was Friday, eight days after that first Thursday morning of mist, -and surprise, and catastrophe; and still the Germans fought their -way forward; but for two days now the French had arrived, and were -present in force from Noyon to Moreuil, and for two days the gap -between the British and the French, which the German break-through -had opened, had been closed. - -Gerry upon that day was detailed with a squadron whose airdrome had -been moved beyond Ribecourt; he had been flying daily, and had -fought an engagement that morning, and after returning from his -afternoon reconnaissance over Noyon he had been ordered to rest, as -the situation was becoming sufficiently stabilized to end the long -strain of his too constant flights. Accordingly, he left late in the -afternoon for Compiègne to look for the field hospital where Agnes -Ertyle would be at work. The original site of her tents had been far -within the zone which the Germans had retaken; and Gerry had heard -that she had done wonders during the moving of the wounded. - -He found her on duty, as he knew she would be; she was a trifle -thinner than before, perhaps; her cool, firm hand clasped his just a -bit tensely; her calm, observant eyes were slightly brighter; but -she was in complete control of herself, as she always was, quite -unconfused--even when two nurses came at the same time for emergency -directions--and quite efficient. - -After a while she was able to give him a little time alone; and they -sat in a tent and talked. Gerry had not seen her or heard from her -since the beginning of the battle, and he found her almost -overwhelmed with the completeness of the British defeat and the -destruction of the Fifth Army. She herself knew and her father, who -was dead, had been a close friend of the commanding officers who -were held responsible for the disaster; and together with the shock -of the defeat, went sympathy for them. They were being removed; and -even the English commander-in-chief no longer had supreme command of -his own men. - -“It’s the greatest thing the allies have yet done--one command,” -Gerry said. “We ought to have had it long ago; if we had, the Boche -never would have done what they just have. When you had your own -army and your own command, and the French had theirs, you each kept -your own reserve; and, of course, Ludendorf knew it. Haig expected -an attack upon his part of the front, so he had to keep his reserve -to himself on his part of the line to be ready for it; the French -looked for an attack on their sectors, so they kept their reserves -to themselves; so wherever Ludendorf struck with all his reserves, -he knew he’d meet only half of ours and that it would take five -days--as it did--for the other half to come up. Now one -commander-in-chief, like Foch, can stop all that.” - -“I can believe it was necessary and, therefore, best,” Lady Agnes -said. “Yet I can’t stop being sorry--not merely for our general -officers, but for our men, too. Poor chaps who come to me; they’ve -fought so finely for England; and now the Boche are boasting they’ve -whipped them and beaten England. They everyone of them are so eager -to get well, and go back, and have at them again, and rather show -the Boche that they’ve not--rather show them that England will have -them! Now we’ll not be under our own command; yet we’ll be fighting -just the same for England; the Boche shall find that England will -have them!” - -“You’ll have them!” Gerry assured. “And far quicker than you could -have before.” - -Lady Agnes observed him, a little puzzled. “You used to say ‘we’ -when you spoke of us,” she said gently. - -Gerry flushed. “I was in your army then,” he replied. - -“You’re fighting with us now--wonderfully, Gerry.” - -“Yes; but technically you see, Agnes, I’m with my own forces.” - -He said “my own” with a tone of distinction which surprised himself. -His own forces, except for a few comrade pilots, and for those -engineers who had grabbed rifles, and got into this battle, and -except for those girls--those “awfully good” girls of Picardy--still -were only in training in France or holding down quiet sectors in -Lorraine. But Gerry had been in one of those sectors which had not -been so noted for its tranquillity after “his own” forces had -arrived. - -However, he was not thinking of those forces just then; he was -recalling an American girl who had come to him across open ground in -the sunlight and under machine-gun fire. For a moment he visualized -her as she stumbled and rolled forward, when he thought she was hit; -then he saw her close beside him with the sun on her glorious hair -and her eyes all anxious for him. Words of hers came to him when -Lady Agnes was speaking again her regret that the English could not -have kept their own command. - -“Oh, I don’t know how to say it!” that American girl’s words -repeated themselves to Gerry; she was in a yellow dress now, with -bare arms and neck, and quite warm and flushed with her intentness -to explain to him something he could not understand at all. “But at -first France was fighting as France and for France against Germany; -and England, for England, was doing the same. And America couldn’t -do that--I mean fight for America. She couldn’t join with allies who -were fighting for themselves, or even for each other. The side of -the allies had to become more than that before we could go in; and -it is and we’re in!” - -Gerry was understanding that better, now. This unification of the -command, and the yielding of the British was their greatest earnest -of that change which Cynthia Gail had felt before, and gloried in, -and which Agnes Ertyle accepted but yet deplored. - -More wounded came streaming back from the battle and Lady Agnes -returned to duty immediately. “That Miss Gail, who was on the Ribot -with us, was in Compiègne the other day,” Agnes told him when he was -saying good-bye. “She’s doing marvels in sorting out refugees, I -hear.” - -Gerry had been wondering often during the last days about what might -have happened to Cynthia; and he had inquired of several people. But -he had not thought that Lady Agnes might know. - -“She was working at a relief headquarters on Rue Solférino, near the -Place de l’Hôtel de Ville.” - -Gerry wandered into Compiègne, finding the Rue Solférino, which was -the main street of the city, more crowded and congested than ever -before. From the throng before the doors, Gerry quickly located the -quarters near the Hôtel de Ville where Cynthia Gail had been working -and, forcing a way in, he spied a yellow head bent over a little boy -and he heard a gentle, sweet voice speaking, in newly learned -French, interrogations about where the child last had seen his -mother, whether he had aunt or uncle and so on. Gerry went farther -in and made himself known; and when the girl looked up and saw him, -an older American woman--Mrs. Mayhew--looked up, and she observed -not only Gerry but the girl also. - -“Hello,” Ruth said. It was a poor word to encompass all she was -feeling at that moment, which was, first, joy and relief that he was -safe; next, that he had come there to seek her. But the word did, as -it many, many times had done before; and he used the same to -encompass what he felt. “Have you had anything to eat tonight?” he -added after his greeting. He suspected not. - -“I’ll have supper later, thanks,” Ruth said. - -“You will not,” Mrs. Mayhew put in. “You can come back after supper, -if you must; but you go out now. Take her with you, Gerry.” - -Which was a command which Gerry obeyed. So they sat together at a -little table in a café, much crowded, and very noisy, and where they -supped in haste; for there was a great multitude to be served. But -they were very light-hearted. - -“You’ve heard the great news about our army?” Ruth asked. - -“That we’re going to be under the command of General Foch like the -English?” - -“Better than that,” Ruth said. “General Pershing has offered all our -forces to the French to use in any way they wish. He’s offered to -break up our brigades, or even our regiments and companies, and let -the French and English brigade our regiments with them, or take our -men as individuals into their ranks, or use us any way they want, -which will help to win. They’re not to think about us--our pride--at -all. They’re just to take us--in any way to help.” - -“No,” said Gerry. “I hadn’t heard that.” - -“It’s just announced,” Ruth told him. “I’d just heard. He did it -under the instructions and with the approval of our government. I -think--I think it’s the finest, most unselfish offer a nation ever -made! All we have in any way that’s best for the cause!” - -Gerry sat back while hot rills of prickling blood tingled to his -temples. “I think so, too, Cynthia,” he said. And again that evening -words of hers, spoken long ago, seized him. “Oh, I don’t know how or -when it will appear; but I know that before long you will be prouder -to be an American than you ever dreamed you could be!” - -Part of that pride was coming to him, then, incredible as it would -have seemed to him even a few days ago, when in the midst of -disaster unparalleled and due to the tardiness of his country. For, -though his country had not come in till so late, now it was offering -itself in a spirit unknown in national relations before. - -When they had finished their supper, he brought her back to her work -and himself returned to his airdrome. The next day Ruth found a -chance to journey to Paris. - -For information--accurate, dependable word of German intentions and -German preparations for the next attack--was the paramount essential -now. This first assault at last was stopped; but only after -tremendous catastrophe; and the Germans still possessed superiority -in physical strength as great as before. And they owned, even more -than before, confidence in themselves, while the allies’ at least -had been shaken. The Germans kept also, undoubtedly, the same powers -of secrecy which had enabled them to launch their tremendous -onslaught as a surprise to the allies, while they themselves -accurately had reckoned the allied strength and dispositions. - -Ruth did not hope, by herself, to change all that. The wild dreams -of the girl who had taken up the bold enterprise offered her in -Chicago, had become tempered by experience, which let her know the -limits within which one person might work in this war; but the -probability that she would be unable to do greatly only increased -her will to do whatever she could. - -Thus she returned to Paris to endeavor to encounter again the enemy -agents who would send her through Switzerland into Germany. As she -knew nothing of them, she must depend upon their seeking her; so she -went at once to her old room in the _pension_ upon the Rue des -Saints Pères. Arriving late in the afternoon, she found Milicent -home from work--a Milicent who put arms about her and cried over her -in relief that she was safe. Then Milicent brought her a cablegram. - -“This came while you were gone, dear. I opened it and tried to -forward it to you.” - -Ruth went white and her heart halted with fear. Had something -happened at home--to her mother or to her sisters? - -“What is it?” - -“Your brother’s badly wounded. He’s here in a hospital, Cynthia!” - -“My brother!” Ruth cried. It had come to her as Cynthia Gail, of -course. She had thought, when nearing the _pension_, that probably -she would find an accumulation of mail to which, as Cynthia, she -must reply. But she had been Cynthia so long now that she had almost -ceased to fear an emergency. Her brother, of course, was Charles -Gail, who had quarreled with his father and of whom nothing had been -heard for four years. - -Ruth took the message and learned that Charles had been with the -Canadians since the start of the war; he had enlisted under an -assumed name; but when wounded and brought to Paris, he had given -his real name and asked that his parents be informed. The -information had reached them; so his father had cabled Cynthia to -try to see Charles before he died. - -“I told Lieutenant Byrne about it,” Milicent said to Ruth. - -“Lieutenant Byrne?” - -“Why, yes; wasn’t that right? He called here for you last week; and -several times since. He said he was engaged to you; why--isn’t he?” - -“Yes, he was. That’s all right,” Ruth said. - -“So he’s been about to see your brother.” - -“How is he? Charles, I mean, of course.” - -“He was still living yesterday.” - -“Lieutenant Byrne is still here?” - -“As far as I know, he is.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIII: BYRNE ARRIVES - - -Ruth turned, without asking more, and went into the room which had -been hers, and shut herself in alone. She dared not inquire anything -further, or permit anything more to be asked of her; she dared not -let Milicent see her until she had time to think. - -Milicent and she long ago had given to one another those intimate -confidences about their personal affairs which girls, who share the -same rooms, usually exchange; but Ruth’s confidences, of course, had -detailed the family situation of Cynthia Gail. Accordingly, Ruth -knew that Milicent had believed that the boy, whose picture was the -third in the portfolio of Cynthia’s family, which Ruth always had -kept upon the dresser, was Ruth’s brother. Milicent would believe, -therefore, that it was this sudden discovery of her brother dying in -a Paris hospital which had shocked Ruth into need for being alone -just now. - -Indeed, feeling for that boy, whose picture she had carried for so -long, and about whom she had written so many times to his parents, -and who was mentioned in some loving manner in almost every one of -those letters which Ruth had received from Decatur, had its part in -the tumult of sensations oversweeping her. But dominant in that -tumult was the knowledge that his discovery--and, even more -certainly, the arrival of George Byrne--meant extinction of Ruth as -Cynthia Gail; meant annihilation of her projects and her plans; -meant, perhaps, destruction of her even as Ruth Alden. - -Ruth had not ceased to realize, during the tremendous events of -these last weeks, that at any moment someone might appear to betray -her; and she had kept some calculation of the probable consequence. -When she had first embraced this wild enterprise, which fate had -seemed to proffer, she had entered upon considerable risks; if -caught, she would have the difficult burden of proof, when she was -taking the enemy’s money and using a passport supplied by the enemy -and following--outwardly, at least--the enemy’s instructions, that -she was not actually acting for the enemy. But if she had been -betrayed during the first days, it would have been possible to show -how the true Cynthia Gail met her death and to show that she--Ruth -Alden--could have had no hand in that. But now more than two months -had passed since that day in Chicago when Ruth Alden took on her -present identity--more than two months since the body of Cynthia -Gail, still unrecognized, must have been cremated or laid away in -some nameless grave. Therefore, the former possibility no longer -existed. - -Horror at her position, if she suddenly faced one of Cynthia Gail’s -family, sometimes startled Ruth up wide-awake in bed at night. She -had not been able to think what to do in such case as that; her mind -had simply balked before it; and every added week with its letters -subscribed by those forged “Thias” to Cynthia’s father, and those -intimate endearments to Cynthia’s mother, and those letters about -love to George Byrne--well, every day had made it more and more -impossible to prepare for the sometime inevitable confession. - -For confession to Cynthia’s family must come if Ruth lived; but -only--she prayed--after the war and after she had done such service -that Cynthia’s people could at least partially understand why she -had tricked them. The best end of all, perhaps--and perhaps the most -probable--was that Ruth should be killed; she would die, then, as -Cynthia, and no one would challenge the dead. That was how Ruth -dismissed the matter when the terror within clamored for answer. But -she could not so dismiss it now. - -Impulse seized her to flee and to hide. But, in the France of the -war, she could not easily do that; nor could she slip off from -Cynthia’s identity and name without complete disaster. Anywhere she -went--even if she desired to take lodgings in a different zone in -Paris, or indeed if she was to dwell elsewhere in the same zone--she -must present Cynthia’s passport and continue as Cynthia. And other, -and more conclusive reasons, controlled her. - -Her sole justification for having become Cynthia Gail was her belief -that she could go into Germany by aid of the German agents who would -know her as Cynthia Gail. They could find her only if she went about -Cynthia Gail’s work and lived at the lodgings here. - -Ruth was getting herself together during these moments of -realization. She opened the bedroom door and called in Milicent. - -Charles Gail had been gassed. Milicent had not seen him, but -Lieutenant Byrne had visited him and repeated to Milicent that he -was not sure whether Charles knew him. Ruth scarcely could bear -thought of visiting Charles Gail and pretending that she was -Cynthia; but it was evident that he was so weak that he would -suspect nothing. - -The chance of George Byrne betraying her was greater. He had been in -Paris, Milicent said, upon some special duty of indefinite duration. -Every time he had called he had left messages with Milicent and had -assumed that he might not be able to return to the Rue des Saints -Pères. - -“He was here the day we got the news that Mirevaux was taken,” -Milicent said. “We tried in every way to get word of you. He was -almost crazy, dear. He loves you; don’t you ever doubt that!” - -Ruth made no reply, though Milicent waited, watching her. - -“I didn’t say anything to him about Gerry Hull, dear.” - -“I’ve written him about meeting Gerry,” Ruth said, simply. “I’ll -start for the hospital now, Mil.” - -“You’ll let me go with you, Cynthia?” - -“Thanks; but it’s not--I think I’d rather not.” - -Milicent gazed at her, a little surprised and hurt, but she made no -further offer. - -Ruth went out on the Rue des Saints Pères alone; a start of panic -seized her as she gazed up and down the little street--panic that -from a neighboring doorway, or about one of the corners, George -Byrne might suddenly appear and speak to her. - -The late spring afternoon was clear and warm; and that part of Paris -was quiet, when from Ruth’s right and ahead of her came the resound -and the concussion of a heavy explosion. Ruth gazed up, -instinctively, to find the German airplane from which a torpedo -might have dropped; but she saw only the faint, dragon-fly forms of -the French sentinel machines which constantly stood guard over -Paris. They circled and spun in and out monotonously, as usual, and -undisturbed at their watch; and, with a start, Ruth suddenly -remembered. From beyond the German lines in the forest of Saint -Gobain, Paris was being bombarded by some new monster of Krupp’s; -the explosion where a haze of débris dust was hanging over the roofs -a half mile or more away had been the burst of a shell from that -gun. Since the start of the German assault the Germans had been -sending these random shells to strike and kill at every half hour -for several hours upon almost every day. So Paris had learned to -recognize them; Paris had become accustomed to them; Parisians -shrugged when they struck. But Ruth did not. - -The studied brutality of that German gun, more than sixty miles -away, dispatching its unaimed shells to do methodical, -indiscriminate murder in the city, was the sort of thing Ruth needed -at that moment to steady her to what lay before her. She was setting -herself to this, as to the rest, to help stop forever deeds like the -firing of that gun. She hastened on more resolutely; the gun fired -again, its monstrous, random shell falling in quite another quarter. -Presenting herself at the doors of the hospital, she ascertained -that Sergeant Charles Gail, who had originally been enrolled in a -Canadian battalion under another name, was still living. -Consultation with a nurse evoked the further information that he was -conscious at the present minute, but desperately weak; he had been -asking many times for his friends or word of his people; it was -therefore permissible--indeed, it was desirable--that his sister see -him. - -Ruth followed the nurse between the long rows of beds where boys and -men lay until the nurse halted beside a boy whose wide-open eyes -gazed up, unmoving, at the ceiling; he was very thin and yellow, but -his brows yet held some of the boldness, in the set of his chin was -still some of the high spirit of defiance of the picture in the -portfolio--the boy who had quarreled with his father four years ago -and who had run away to the war. - -“Here is your sister,” the nurse told him gently in French. - -“My sister?” he repeated the French words while his eyes sought and -found Ruth. A tinge of color came to his cheek; with an effort a -hand lifted from the coverlet. - -“Hello, Cynth,” he said. “They said--you were--here.” - -Ruth bent and kissed his forehead. “All right, Cynth,” he murmured -when she withdrew a little. “You can do that again.” - -Ruth did it again and sat down beside him. His hand was in hers; and -whenever she relaxed her tight grasp of it he stirred impatiently. -He did not know she was not his sister. His eyes rested upon hers, -but vacantly; he was too exhausted to observe critically; his sister -had come, they said; and if she was not exactly as he remembered -her, why he had not seen her for four years; a great deal had -happened to her, and even more had happened to him. Her lips were -soft and warm as his sister’s always had been; her hands were very -gentle, and it was awfully good to have her there. - -Ruth was full of joy that she had dared to come; for she was, to -this boy, his sister. - -“Tell me--about--home,” he begged her. - -“I’ve brought all my letters,” she said; and opening them with one -hand--for he would not have her lose grasp of him--she read the home -news until the nurse returned and, nodding, let Ruth know she must -go. - -He could not follow in his mind the simple events related in the -letters; but he liked to hear the sentences about home objects, and -the names of the people he had loved, and who loved him. - -“You’ll--come back--tomorrow, Cynth?” he pleaded. - -Ruth promised and kissed him again and departed. - -It was quite dark now on the streets with only the sound of the -evening bustle. The long-range German gun had ceased firing; but the -dim lights beside doorways proved that on this clear, still night -the people of Paris realized the danger of air raids. Ruth was -hurrying along, thinking of the boy she had left and of his comrades -in the long rows of beds; from them her thoughts flew back to the -battle, to “1583” and his English on the hill, to Grand’mère -Bergues’ farm, and to Gerry Hull; she thought of the German soldiers -she had seen with him and of her errand to their land. Almost before -she realized it, she was turning into the little street of the Holy -Fathers when a man, approaching out of the shadows, suddenly halted -before her and cried out: - -“Cynthia!” - -The glow of light was behind him, so she could not make out his -face; but she knew that only one stranger, recognizing her as -Cynthia, could have cried out to her like that; so she spoke his -name instantly, instinctively, before she thought. - -Her voice either was like Cynthia’s or, in his rush of feeling, -George Byrne did not notice a difference. He had come before her and -was seizing her hands; his fingers, after their first grasp, moved -up her arms. “Cynthia; my own Cynthia,” he murmured her name. At -first he had held her in the glow of the light the better to see -her; but now he carried her back with him into the shadow; and his -arms were around her; he was crushing her against him, kissing her -lips, her cheeks, her lips again, her hands from which he stripped -the gloves. - -She strained to compress her repulse of him. He was not rough nor -sensuous; he simply was possessing himself of her in full passion of -love. If she were Cynthia, who loved this man, she would have clung -in his embrace in the abandonment of joy. Ruth tried to think of -that and control herself not to repel him; but she could not. -Reflexes, beyond her obedience, opposed him. - -Ever since Milicent had informed her that he was in Paris, Ruth had -been forming plans for every contingency of their meeting; but this -encounter had introduced elements different from any expectations. -If this visit to the street of the Holy Fathers was to be his last -one before leaving Paris, then perhaps she had better keep him out -upon the street in the dark and play at being Cynthia until she -could dismiss him. She must feel--or at least she must betray--no -recoil of outrage at his taking her into his arms. He had had that -right with Cynthia Gail. Though he and Cynthia had quarreled--and -Ruth had never mended that quarrel--yet Cynthia and he had loved. -Too much had passed between them to put them finally apart. And now, -as Ruth felt his arms enfolding her, his lips on hers, and his -breath whispering to her his passionate love, she knew that Cynthia -could not have forbidden this. - -He took Ruth’s struggle as meant to tempt his strength and he -laughed joyously as, very gently, he overpowered her. She tried to -cease to struggle; she tried to laugh as Cynthia would have laughed; -but she could not. “Don’t!” she found herself resisting. “Don’t!” - -“Oh! I hurt you, dearest?” - -“Yes,” she said; though he had not. And remorsefully and with -anxious endearments, he let her go. - -“You’ve heard about Charles?” he asked. - -“I’ve just come from him.” - -“He’s--the same?” - -“Yes.” - -She stood gasping against the wall of a building, entirely in the -shadow herself, with the little light which reached them showing her -his face. Ruth liked that face; and she liked the girl whom she -played at being--that Cynthia whose identity she was carrying on, -but about whom she yet knew so little--for having loved this man. -George Byrne had been clean-living; he was strong and eager, but -gentle, too. He had high thoughts and resolute ideals. These he had -told her in those letters which had come; but Ruth had not embodied -them in him till now. She was recovering from the offense of having -anyone’s arms but Gerry’s about her. She was not conscious of -thinking of Gerry that way; only, his arms had been about her, he -had held her; and, because of that, what she had just undergone had -been more difficult to bear. - -“I love you; you love me, Cynthia?” Byrne was begging of her now. - -“Of course I do,” she said. - -“There’s not someone else, then? Tell me, Cynthia!” - -“No--no one else,” she breathed. What could she say? She was not -speaking for herself; but for Cynthia; and now she was absolutely -sure that, for Cynthia, there could have been no one else. But she -could not deceive him. - -“My God!” he gasped the realization to himself, drawing back a -little farther from her. “Then that’s--that’s been the matter all -the time.” - -“All what time?” she asked. - -“Since you met Gerry Hull in Chicago.” - -He meant, of course, since the girl who had loved him had died; but -he did not know that. He had felt a change in the letters which had -come to him which he could not explain as merely the result of their -quarrel. Another man seemed to him the only possible explanation. - -Someone opened a door behind them; and Ruth withdrew from the shaft -of light. “We can’t stay here, George,” she said. - -She thought that now he was noticing a difference in her voice; but -if he did, evidently he put it down as only part of her alteration -toward him. - -“Where can we go?” he asked her. - -“Not back to the _pension_,” Ruth said. - -“No; no! Can’t you stay out with me here? We can walk.” - -“Yes.” - -He faced down the street of the Holy Fathers away from the -_pension_; she came beside him. He took her hand and for a moment -held it as, undoubtedly, he and Cynthia had done when walking in -darkened streets together; but after a few steps he released her. - -“Your hand’s thinner, Cynthia.” - -“I suppose so.” - -“You’re a little thinner all over. I can’t see you well; but you -felt that way,” he said a little sadly, referring to his embrace -which she had broken. “You’ve been overdoing, of course.” - -She made no reply; and for several seconds he offered nothing more -but went on, gazing down at her. “You’ve been fine, Cynthia, in -getting those people out.” He spoke of what he had heard of her work -in the retreat. “I knew ten days ago you were in it; but I couldn’t -go to you! I tried to; I tried to get into the fight. We all -tried--our men; but they didn’t want us. Except Gerry Hull, of -course, and a few like him.” - -He said this so completely without bitterness--with envy, only--that -Ruth felt more warmly for him. “It’s Gerry Hull, isn’t it, Cynthia?” -he demanded directly. - -“Yes,” she admitted now. Denial had become wholly impossible; -moreover, by telling the truth--or that much of the truth which had -to do with Gerry Hull--she might send George Byrne away. It was a -cruel wrong to him, and to the girl who was dead; but the wrong -already was done. Ruth merely was beginning herself to reap some of -the fruits of her deception. - -“You love him?” Byrne inquired of her inevasively. - -“Yes.” - -“He loves you?” - -“I don’t know.” - -“What’s he said to you?” - -“Nothing--about loving me.” - -“But he loves you, all right; he must, if he knows you!” Byrne -returned in pitiful loyalty to his Cynthia. “How much has gone on -between you?” he demanded. - -Ruth related to him much about her meetings with Gerry, while they -walked side by side about the Paris streets. A dozen times she was -on the point of breaking down and telling him all the truth; when -his hand reached toward hers, instinctively, and suddenly pulled -away; when they passed a light and, venturing to gaze up, she saw -his face as he looked down at her; when he asked her questions or -offered short, hoarse interjections, she almost cried out to him -that she was a fraud; the girl he had loved, and who she was saying -had turned from him, was dead and had been dead all that time during -which he had felt the difference; she had never met Gerry Hull at -all. - -“What are you stopping for?” he asked her at one of these times. -“Thinking about the Sangamon River?” - -That was the Illinois river which flowed close by Cynthia Gail’s -home. And Ruth knew from his voice that by the river Cynthia and he -first had known love. - -“Yes,” Ruth said; but now her courage completely failed her. - -“What did you say to me, then; oh, what did we both say, Cynthia?” - -This was no test or challenge of Ruth; it was simply a cry from his -heart. - - How do I love thee? Let me count the ways, - I love thee to the depth and height.... - -He was starting to quote something which they used to repeat -together. - -“Go on, Cynthia!” he charged. - -“I can’t,” Ruth cried. - -“You can’t--after you found it and taught it to me? ‘_I love thee -with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life_,’” he quoted -bitterly to her. “Let me look at you better, Cynthia!” - -They were passing a light and he drew her closer to it. - -“What has happened to you?” he whispered to her aghast when he had -searched her through and through with his eyes. Then, “_Who are -you?_” - -He had made, he realized, some frightful mistake; how he could have -come to make it, he did not know. “You’re not Cynthia Gail!” he -cried. For an instant, that discovery was enough for him. The agony -which he had been suffering this last half hour was not real; the -girl whom he had found on the street never had been his; they had -both been going about only in some grotesque error. - -“No; I’m not Cynthia Gail,” Ruth told him. - -“Then where is she?” he demanded. “Where is my Cynthia?” His hands -were upon Ruth and he shook her a little in the passion of his -demand. He could not even begin to suspect the truth; but--from -sight of her now--fear flicked him. If this girl was not Cynthia---- - -“How are you so like her?” he put his challenge aloud. “Why did you -pretend to be her? Why? You tell me why!” - -“I’ll tell you,” Ruth said. “But not here.” - -“Where?” - -“We must find some place where we can talk undisturbed; where we can -have a long talk.” - -“Take me to her, first. That’s all I care about. I don’t care about -you--or why you did that. I don’t care, I say. Take me to Cynthia; -or I’ll go there.” - -He started away toward the Rue des Saints Pères and the _pension_; -so Ruth swiftly caught his sleeve. - -“You can’t go to her!” Ruth gasped to him. “She’s not there. Believe -me, you can’t find her!” - -“Why not?” - -“She’s--we must find some place, Mr. Byrne!” - -“She’s--what? Killed? Killed, you were going to say?” - -“Yes; she’s been killed.” - -“In Picardy, you mean? Where? How? Why, she was at her rooms two -hours ago. Miss Wetherell told me; or was she lying to me?” - -“I was at the rooms two hours ago,” Ruth said. “Miss Wetherell knows -me as Cynthia Gail. I’ve been Cynthia Gail since January.” - -“What do you mean? How?” - -“Cynthia Gail died in January, Mr. Byrne.” - -“What? How? Where?” - -“She was killed--in Chicago.” - -“That’s a lie! Why, I’ve been hearing from her myself.” - -“You’ve been hearing from me. I’m Cynthia Gail, I tell you. I’ve -been Cynthia Gail since January.” - -He caught another glimpse of her face; and his impetuousness to -start to the Rue des Saints Pères collapsed, pitifully. “Where shall -we go?” he asked. - -Ruth gazed about, uncertainly; she had not attended to their -direction; and now she found herself in a strange, narrow street of -tiny shops and apartments, interrupted a half square ahead by a -chasm of ruins and strewn débris, where one of those random shells -from the German long-range gun, or a bomb dropped from a -night-raiding Gotha recently had struck. The destruction had been -done sufficiently long ago, however, for the curiosity of the -neighborhood to have been already satisfied and for all treasures to -have been removed. The ruin was fenced off, therefore, and was -unguarded. Ruth gazed into the shell of the building and Byrne, -glancing in also, saw that in the rear were apartments half wrecked -and deserted, but which offered sanctuary from the street. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV: FULL CONFESSION - - -“No one will be likely to come in here,” Ruth said, and stepped into -the house. - -Byrne followed her without comment, quite indifferent to their -surroundings. When Ruth spoke to him again about the house, he -replied vacantly; his mind was not here, but with Cynthia Gail, -where he had last seen her in Chicago that Sunday night in January -when they had parted. What had thereafter happened to her was the -first matter to him. - -Ruth, exploring the ruin, came upon a room which seemed to have been -put in some sort of order, so far as she could see from the dim -light which came through the doorway. - -“Give me a match,” she asked Byrne; he took a matchbox from his -pocket and, striking a light, he held it while they peered about. -There was a fixture protruding from the wall, but no light resulted -when Ruth turned the switch. Byrne’s match went out; he struck -several others before their search discovered a bit of a candle in -an old sconce in a corner. Byrne lit it, and Ruth closed the door -which led into what had been a hallway. She returned to Byrne, who -had remained in the corner where the candle diffused its light. -There was a built-in bench there beside an old fireplace, a couple -of old chairs and a table. - -“Let’s sit down,” Ruth said. - -“You sit down,” Byrne bid. “I’ll--” he did not finish his sentence; -but he remained standing, hands behind him, staring down at her as -she seated herself upon the bench. - -“Now,” he said to her. - -His lips pressed tight and Ruth could see that he jerked with short -spasms of emotion which shuddered his shoulders suddenly together -and shook his whole body. - -Ruth had desired the light instinctively, with no conscious reason; -the same instinct which made her need to see him before she could go -on, probably affected him; but with him had been the idea that the -light would banish the illusion which overswept him again and again -that this girl still was his Cynthia. But the faint, flickering -illumination from the candle had failed to do that; it seemed, on -the contrary, at times to restore and strengthen the illusion. A -better light might have served him more faithfully; and if he -brought her close to the candle and scrutinized her again as he had -under the light of the street, he would see surely that she was -someone else. But here, Ruth realized, she was falling into the -postures of the girl who was dead. - -“Cynthia!” Byrne whispered again to her. - -“What I know about Cynthia Gail,” Ruth said to him gently then, “is -this.” And she told, almost without interruption from him, how -Cynthia had met her death. Ruth did not explain how she had learned -her facts; for a while the facts themselves were overwhelming -enough. He made sure that he could learn nothing more from her -before he challenged her as to how she knew. - -“You read this in a newspaper, you said?” - -“Yes; in all the Chicago newspapers,” Ruth replied. “I read the -accounts in all to find out everything which was known about her.” - -“Wait now! You said no one knew her; she was not identified.” - -“No; she was not.” - -“Then you saw her? You identified her?” - -“No; I never saw her.” - -“Then how do you know it was Cynthia? See here; what are you holding -from me? How do you know she’s dead at all?” - -“The Germans told me. The Germans said that she was the girl who was -killed in that wreck.” - -“The Germans? What Germans? What do you mean?” - -“A German--I don’t know who--but some German identified her from her -passport and took the passport.” - -“Why? How do you know that? How did you get into her affairs, -anyway?” - -“Because I was like her,” Ruth said. “I happened to be so very like -her that----” - -“That what?” He was standing over her now, shaking, controlling -himself by intervals of effort; and Ruth faltered, huddling back a -little farther from him and gazing up at him aghast. She had -determined, a few minutes earlier, that there had become no -alternative for her but to confess to him the entire truth; but the -truth which she had to tell had become an incredible thing, as the -truth--the exact truth of the circumstances which fix fates--has a -way of becoming. - -Desperately her mind groped for a way to arrange the events of that -truth in a way to make him believe; but each moment of delay only -made her task more impossible. He had roused from the suspicion, -which had begun to inflame him when they were yet on the street, to -a certainty that the girl whom he loved had been foully dealt by. - -“That what?” he demanded again. - -So Ruth told him about herself, and the first meeting with Gerry -Hull, and the pencil boxes, and the beggar on State Street. She did -not proceed without interruptions now; he challenged and catechized -her. If he had refused her whole story, it would not have been so -bad; but he was believing part of it--the part which fitted his -passions. He believed that the Germans had found the body of Cynthia -Gail, and he believed more than that. He believed that they had -killed her, and he cried out to Ruth to tell him when, and how. He -believed that the Germans, having killed Cynthia, had tried to make -use of her identity and her passport; and that they had succeeded! -His hands were upon Ruth once more, holding her sternly and firmly. - -“I put you under arrest,” he said to her hoarsely, “as accessory in -the murder of Cynthia Gail and as a German spy.” - -And yet, as he held her there before him in the dim light of the -tallow wick in the sconce upon the wall, she seemed to him, for -flashes of time, to be the girl he accused her of having killed. - -“Cynthia; where are you?” he pleaded with her once as though, within -Ruth, was the soul of his love whom he could call to come out and -take possession of this living form. - -Then he had her under arrest again. “Come with me!” he commanded, -and he thrust her toward the door. But now Ruth fought against him. - -“No; we must stay here!” - -“Why?” - -“Till you will believe in me!” - -“Then we’ll never leave here. Will you come, or must I take you?” - -“Leave me alone just a minute.” - -“So you can get away?” - -“No; just you stay here. I’ll go back there,” Ruth tossed toward the -corner where she had sat. “There’s no way out. Only--let go of me!” - -He did so, watching her suspiciously. She dropped into her seat in -the corner under the candle. “I’ve told you why I did this,” she -said. - -“And you didn’t fool me.” - -“I’ve no proof of anything I’ve told you,” Ruth went on, “only -because, if you’ll think about it, you’ll see I couldn’t carry -proof.” - -“I should say not.” - -“But I’ve done something since I’ve been here which proves what I -am.” - -“What? Helping refugees out of Picardy? What does that prove--except -that you’ve nerve?” - -“Nothing,” Ruth admitted. “If I was a German agent, I might have -done that. I wasn’t thinking of that.” - -“What of, then?” - -She was thinking about her exposure of De Trevenac; but, though now -it was known that Louis de Trevenac had been proved a spy, had been -tried and punished, no explanation had been given as to how he had -been caught. Those who tried him had not known, perhaps; only Gerry -knew. - -“Gerry Hull will tell you,” Ruth replied. “I don’t ask you to take -my word about myself anymore; I ask you only, before you accuse me, -to send for him.” - -“Gerry Hull!” Byrne iterated, approaching her closely again and -gazing down hostilely. For an instant he had not been able to -disassociate Gerry Hull from himself as a rival for Cynthia Gail. -“So he knows all about you, does he?” - -“No; he thinks I am Cynthia Gail; but----” - -“What?” - -“He knows--he must know that, whoever I am, I’m loyal! So send for -him, or go and speak to him before you do anything more; that’s all -I ask. Oh, I know this has been horrible for you, Mr. Byrne.” For -the first time Ruth was losing control of herself. “But do you -suppose it’s been easy for me? And do you suppose I’ve done it for -myself or for any adventure to see the war or just to come here? -I’ve done it to go into Germany! Oh, you won’t stop me now! For if -you leave me alone--don’t you see--I may get into Germany tomorrow -or this week or anyway before the next big attack can come! What do -I count, what do you count, what can the memory of Cynthia Gail -count in comparison with what I may do if I can go on into Germany? -What----” - -“Don’t cry!” Byrne forbade her hoarsely, seizing her shoulder and -shaking her almost roughly. “My God, Cynthia,” he begged, “don’t -cry.” - -He had called her by that name again; and Ruth knew that, not her -appeal, but her semblance in her emotion to Cynthia, had overcome -him for the moment. - -“I’m not going to cry,” Ruth said. “But----” - -He stopped her brusquely. He seemed afraid, indeed, to let her go -on. “Whether I’ve got to bring you to the army authorities and give -you over at once under arrest,” he said coldly, “is up to you. If -you agree to go with me quietly--and keep your agreement--I’ll take -you along myself.” - -“Where?” Ruth asked. - -“I know some people, whom I can trust and who can take you in charge -till I can talk to Hull. He’s the only reference you care to give?” - -“Yes,” she said. - -“If he stands for you, that won’t mean anything to me, I might as -well tell you,” Byrne returned. “You’ve probably got him fooled; you -could do it, all right, I guess.” - -“Then what’s the use in your sending for him?” - -“Oh; you think now there’s none? It was your idea, not mine.” - -“I’ll go with you quietly to your friends,” Ruth decided, ending -this argument. “I’ll understand that you’re going to communicate -with Gerry Hull about me.” - -She arose and Byrne seized her arm firmly. He blew out the candle -and, still clasping her, he groped his way to the door. Some one -stepped in the rubbish on the other side. They had been conscious, -during their stay in the room, that many people had passed outside; -once or twice, perhaps, a passer-by might have paused to gaze at the -ruin; but Ruth had heard no one enter the house. Byrne had heard no -one; for his grasp on Ruth’s arm tightened with a start of surprise -as he realized that the someone who now suddenly moved on the other -side of the door must have come there moments before. - -Byrne stepped back, drawing Ruth with him, and thrusting her a -little behind him. The person on the other side of the door was a -watchman, perhaps, or the owner of this house or a neighbor -investigating to what use these ruined rooms were now being put. -Byrne, thinking thus, spoke loudly in labored French, “I am an -American officer, with a companion, who has looked in here.” - -“Very well,” came in French and in a man’s voice from the other side -of the door. Byrne advanced to the door and opened it, therefore, -and was going through when a bludgeon beat down upon him. Byrne -reeled back, raising his left arm to shield off another blow; he -tried to strike back with his left arm and grapple his assailant; -but with his right, he still held to Ruth as though she would seize -this chance to escape; and yet, at the same time, Ruth felt that he -was protecting her with his body before hers. - -“Let me go!” she jerked to be free. “I’ll--help you!” - -He did not mean to let her go when she struggled free; he was still -trying to hold to her and also fight the man who was beating at him. -But her getting free, let him close with his assailant and grapple -with him. They spun about and went down, rolling over and over in -the débris. Ruth grabbed up a bit of iron pipe from among the -wreckage on the floor; and she bent over trying to strike at the man -with the bludgeon. - -“Help!” she called out. “_Secours!_” - -She knew now that the man who had waited outside was no mere -defender of the house; the treachery and the violence of his attack -could not be explained by concern for safety of that ruin. Ruth -could not think who the man might be or what was his object except -that he was fighting to kill, as he struck and fought with Byrne on -the floor. And Byrne, knowing it, was fighting to kill him, too. - -“_Secours!_” Ruth screamed for help again and with her bit of iron, -she struck--whom, she did not know. But they rolled away and pounded -each other only a few moments more before one overcame the other. -One leaped up while the other lay on the floor; the one who had -leaped up, crouched down and bludgeoned the other again; so that -Ruth knew that Byrne was the one who lay still. She screamed out -again for help while she flung herself at the man who was bending -over. But he turned about and caught her arms and held her firmly. -He bent his head to hers and whispered to her while he held her. - -“_Weg!_” The whisper warned her. It was German, “Away!” And the rest -that he said was in German. “I have him for you struck dead! -Careful, now! Away to Switzerland!” - -He dropped Ruth and fled; she went after him, breathless, trying to -cry out; but her cries were weak and unheard. He ran through the -rear of the house into a narrow alley down which he disappeared; she -went to the end of the alley, crying out. But the man was gone. She -stopped running at last and ceased to call out. She stood, swaying -so that she caught to a railing before a house to steady herself. -The words of the whisper ran on her lips. “I have him for you struck -dead!” - -They gave her explanation of the attack which, like the words of De -Trevenac to her, permitted only one possible meaning. The man who -had waited in the ruined house must have been one of the German -agents in Paris whom Ruth had returned to meet. Evidently, while -Byrne had been inquiring for her, the Germans too had been vigilant; -they had awaited her return either to get her report of what she had -seen in Picardy or to assign her to another task or--she could not -know why they awaited her; but certainly they had. One of them had -learned that afternoon that she had returned; he was seeking her, -perhaps, when Byrne found her. Perhaps he had known the peril to her -from Byrne; perhaps he merely had learned, from whatever he had -overheard of their talk in that ruined room, that Byrne accused her -of being a German spy; and so he had taken his chance to strike, for -her, Byrne dead. - -The horror of this realization sickened her; the German murderer -“for her” had made good his escape; and it would be useless to -report him now. She would be able to offer no description of him; -and to report that a large man, who was a German spy, had been about -that part of Paris this evening would be idle. But she must return -at once to Byrne who might not be dead. So she steadied herself and -hastened down the street seeking the ruined house. - -It was a part of Paris quite unfamiliar to her; and, as she had not -observed where she and Byrne had wandered, she passed a square or -two without better placing herself; and then, inquiring of a -passer-by, where was a ruined house, she obtained directions which -seemed to be correct; but arriving at the ruin, she found it was not -the one which Byrne and she had entered. Consequently it was many -minutes before she found the ruined house which gave her no doubt of -its identity. For people were gathered about it; and Ruth, -approaching these, learned that a monstrous attack had been made -upon an American infantry officer who, when first found, was -believed to have been killed; but the surgeon who had arrived and -had removed him, said this was not so. Robbery, some said, had been -the motive of the crime; for the officer had much money in his -pocket; but the murderer had not time to remove it. Others, who -claimed to have heard a girl’s voice, believed there might have been -more personal reasons; why had a man and a girl been in those rooms -that night? - -Ruth breathed her thankfulness that Byrne was not dead; and she -withdrew. Since Byrne had been taken away, she could do nothing for -him; and she would simply destroy herself by giving herself up to -the authorities. If Byrne lived and regained consciousness, -undoubtedly he would inform against her. - -But though she would not give herself up, certainly she would not -try to escape if Byrne accused her; she would return to her room and -go about her work while she awaited consequences. - -None followed her that night. She admitted to Milicent, when -questioned, that she had met Lieutenant Byrne upon the street and -they had walked together; Ruth said also that she had seen her -brother. Milicent evidently ascribed her agitation to a quarrel with -Byrne. - -Ruth lay awake most of that night. The morning paper which Milicent -and she read contained no mention, amid the tremendous news from the -front, of the attack upon an American officer in a ruined house; and -no consequences threatened Ruth that morning. She planned for a -while to try to trace Byrne and learn whether he had regained -consciousness; then she abandoned that purpose. She was satisfied, -from one of those instincts which baffle question, that Byrne lived; -and it would be only a question of time before he must accuse her. - -Yet she might have time enough to leave Paris and France--to get -away into Switzerland and into Germany. For the fact that a German -had for her attempted to strike her accuser dead was final proof -that the Germans had not connected her with the betrayal of De -Trevenac; they believed that she had been in Picardy all this time -on account of orders given her by De Trevenac. - -It was possible, of course, that the German who had struck for her -and whom she had pursued, would now himself suspect her. Yet her -flight after him might have seemed to him only her ruse to escape. -What he had last said to her, she must receive as her orders from -the Germans in Paris. “Away to Switzerland!” - -That concurred with the sentence of instruction given upon that page -which she had received with her passport that cold January morning -in Chicago.... “You will report in person, via Switzerland; apply -for passport to Lucerne.” - -At this moment when, for the cause of her country and its allies, -she had determined that she must make the attempt to go on to -Germany, the Germans were ready to have her. And that was easy to -understand; she had spent weeks going about freely behind the newly -formed English and French lines which bagged back about the immense -salient which the Germans had thrust toward Amiens; she was -supposed, as a German, to have ready report about the strength of -those lines as seen from the rear, of the strength of the support, -the morale of soldiers and civilians and the thousand other details -which the enemy desired to know. - -So Ruth went early that morning to the United States Consul General -with her passport which long ago had been substituted for that -ruined passport of Cynthia Gail’s; and she offered it for _visé_, -asking permission to leave Paris and France for a visit to the -neutral country of Switzerland, and, more particularly, to Lucerne. -She stated that the object of her journey was rest and recuperation; -she knew that, not infrequently in the recent months, American girls -who had been working near the war zones had been permitted vacations -in Switzerland; but she found that times were different now. She -encountered no expressed suspicion and no discourtesy; she simply -was informed that in the present crisis it was impossible to act -immediately upon such requests. Her application would be filed and -passed upon in due time; and a clerk questioned Ruth concerning the -war service which she had rendered which was supposed to have so -exhausted her that she desired rest in Switzerland. - -Ruth, hot with shame, perforce related what she had been through in -the retreat. She was quite aware when she went away and returned to -her work that her application for permission to go to Switzerland -would be the most damning evidence against her, when Byrne should -bring his accusation; and now, having made application, she could do -nothing but wait where she was. However, she heard nothing from -Byrne or from the authorities upon that day nor upon the succeeding -days of the week during which she worked, as she had when she first -came to Paris, in the offices of the relief society; upon almost -every afternoon she visited Charles Gail who was slowly sinking. - -After three days and then after a wait of three more, she revisited -the consulate and inquired about her _permission_ for Switzerland; -but she got no satisfaction either time. But when at last the week -wore out and she met no interference with her ordinary comings and -goings, she was beginning to doubt her beliefs that George Byrne -lived; he must have died, she thought, and without having been able -to communicate his knowledge of her to anyone. Then one night she -was returning to the Rue des Saints Pères a little later than usual; -the mild, April afternoon had dimmed to twilight and, as she passed -the point where George Byrne had encountered her, fears possessed -her again; they lessened only to increase once more, as they now had -formed a habit of doing, when she approached the _pension_. - -“Letters for me, Fanchette?” she said to the daughter of her -landlady who was at the door when Ruth came in. - -“No letters, Mademoiselle; but Monsieur le Lieutenant!” - -Ruth stopped stark. Many Messieurs les Lieutenants and men of other -ranks called at the _pension_ for Milicent or for Ruth, just for an -evening’s entertainment; but such did not appear at this hour. - -“He is in the salon, Mademoiselle.” - -Ruth went in. If it was George Byrne, at least then he was alive and -now strong again. The lamp in the little salon had been lit; and a -tall, uniformed figure arose from beside it. - -“Hello, Cynthia,” a familiar voice greeted. Gerry Hull’s voice! - -Ruth retreated a little and held to the door to support her in her -relaxation of relief. A hundred times during this terrible week, -Ruth had wanted to send for him. - -“I’m so glad to see you, Gerry.” - -“That’s good.” His tall, lithe self was beside her; his strong, -steady fingers grasped her arm and gently supported her when she let -go the door. He closed the door and led her to a chair where the -light of the lamp would fall full upon her. “Sit down there,” he -commanded kindly; and, when she obeyed, he seated himself opposite -pulling his chair closer the better to observe her but at the same -time bringing himself under the light. - -He had changed a great deal since last she saw him, Ruth thought. -No; she corrected herself, not so much since she had parted from him -after the retreat from Picardy; but he had altered greatly since -last he sat opposite her in this little salon at that time they -talked together about De Trevenac. The boy he had been when she -first saw him on the streets of Chicago; the boy he had been when he -had spoken at Mrs. Corliss’, had been maturing with marvelous -swiftness in these last weeks into a man. His eyes showed it--his -fine, impulsive, determined eyes, no less resolute and not less -impatient, really, but somehow a little more tolerant and -understanding than they had been. His lips showed it--thinner a -trifle and a trifle more drawn and straight though they seemed to -smile quite as easily. His whole bearing betrayed, not so much an -abandonment of creeds he had lived by, as a doubt of their total -sufficiency and the unsettledness which comes to one beginning to -grasp something new. - -“You’ve changed a good deal,” Ruth offered audibly. - -“I was thinking that about you,” Gerry said. - -“I guess--I guess we’ve changed some--together.” - -“I guess so.” - -She sat without response. Someone neared the door and Ruth roused -and, forgetting Gerry for an instant, she listened in covert alarm -in a manner which had become so habitual to her these last days that -she was not aware of it until he noticed it. The step passed the -door; and Ruth settled back. - -“Well, Cynthia,” Gerry asked her directly then, “what have you been -up to?” - -“What do you mean?” - -“I was going to come to Paris to see you next week,” Gerry said. -“But something particular came up yesterday to make me manage this -today. I shouldn’t tell you, I suppose; in fact I know I shouldn’t. -The intelligence people have been poking about inquiring about you.” - -Ruth felt herself growing pale but she asked steadily enough, - -“Where?” - -“Where I was for one place.” - -“They asked you about me?” - -He nodded. “They asked Agnes Ertyle, too.” - -“Why?” - -“That’s what I came here to find out. What’re you up to now?” - -He knew nothing, Ruth was sure, about George Byrne. Whatever -knowledge was in the hands of those who questioned him, he knew -nothing more than the fact of the inquiry. - -“It’s because I’ve applied for permission to go to Switzerland, I -suppose,” Ruth said. - -“To go where?” he questioned. - -She repeated it. - -He bent closer quickly. - -“Why in the world are you going there?” - -“To rest up.” - -“You? That’s what you told the Embassy people, I suppose.” - -“Yes.” - -“Well, did they believe it?” - -“I don’t know.” - -“I hope you didn’t expect me to. Look at me, Cynthia Gail. Why are -you traveling to Switzerland; you have to tell me the truth of what -you intend to do!” - - - - -CHAPTER XV: GERRY’S PROBLEM - - -Ruth had told that truth, perforce, to George Byrne with the result -that he had condemned her; and, when meeting this condemnation, she -had said that Gerry must know that she was loyal. But did she know -that now? - -Questions crowded upon her which, she knew, must come to him. She -had betrayed De Trevenac; but it was a known principle of the German -spy organization that, at certain times and under certain -circumstances, one agent would betray another. The Germans punished -some of their spies in this way; in other cases, when a man was to -be discarded who had ceased to be useful, another spy had been -appointed to betray him for the advantage that the betrayal would -bring to the informer. - -Immediately after that betrayal, Ruth had gone to the precise -districts concerning which the Germans had desired information -preceding and during their attack and where results proved that -spies must have been numerous and unsuspected. Gerry had commented -upon this to Ruth during their retreat from Mirevaux; and when she -replied, he had realized again that she was not in France doing -“just relief work.” He had asked what else she was doing; she had -evaded answer. Would he believe her answer now or only that part of -it which George Byrne had believed? - -She arose and went to the door and saw that it was firmly closed. - -“Do you remember, Gerry,” she asked when she returned “that first -time we talked together in Mrs. Corliss’ conservatory, that I said I -woke up that morning trying to imagine myself knowing you--without -the slightest hope that I ever could?” - -“I remember you said something like that, Cynthia.” - -“Did you ever wonder how that might be? I mean that I should have -been invited to Mrs. Corliss’ and that same morning not imagine that -I could meet you?” - -“I suppose I thought Mrs. Corliss hadn’t called you till late,” -Gerry said. - -“She never called me, myself, at all. A girl--a strange girl, whom I -had never seen--a girl named Cynthia Gail had been asked. But she -had died before that day; so I came in her place.” - -Gerry drew a little nearer intently. “Because your names were the -same; you were related to her?” - -“No; I wasn’t related to her at all; and our names were entirely -different.” - -“But you----” - -“Took her name, yes, I did.” - -“And her passport?” He was thinking now, Ruth knew, of her ruined -passport and how he had advised her about having a new picture put -on it and how it had been, not by her own credentials but by his -requesting Agnes Ertyle to vouch for her, that she had been accepted -in France. - -“Yes; I took her passport and her identity--everything she had and -was, Gerry. I became on noon of that day Cynthia Gail. That -forenoon, I was Ruth Alden working for a real estate firm named -Hilton Brothers in Chicago for twenty-five dollars a week. I wanted -to tell you that--oh I wanted so much to tell you all about myself -that afternoon when you asked how I happened to be at Mrs. Corliss’ -and could think and say such different things from the other people -there.” - -“Why didn’t you?” - -She confused him, at first, as she had George Byrne; and she made -Gerry suspicious, too, but with an impersonal challenge and distrust -quite distinct from what Byrne’s had been. The real Cynthia Gail, of -course, had meant nothing to Gerry; he had known her only as Ruth -had come to him. What he was concerned for was the cause for which -and in which he had lived for four years--the cause which was -protected and secured by passports and credentials and authentic -identities and which was threatened by those who forged passports -and appeared in the allied lines under names other than their own. - -“I dared trust no one then--you almost last of all.” - -“With what?” - -“The great plan which I dreamed I might carry out alone--a plan of -going into Germany, Gerry, as a spy for America!” - -“Ah! So that’s the idea in Switzerland!” - -“Yes. The chance came to me that morning within a few minutes after -I spoke to you in the motor car on the street. You remember that?” - -“Of course.” - -“I was almost crazy to get into the war; and I couldn’t find any -way; then....” - -She told him, much as she had told Byrne, about the German who had -played the beggar and who had stopped her; of the disclosures in her -room; of her going to the hotel and finding Hubert waiting; and -then, after she had gone to Mrs. Corliss’ and met Gerry, how the -German woman had ordered her to take the _Ribot_. - -“The rest about me, I guess you know now, Gerry.” - -He made no answer as he had made no challenge except a question or -two to bring out some point more clearly. For a while, as she made -her confession, he had remained seated opposite her and gazing at -her with increasing confusion and distress; then, unable to remain -quiet, he had leaped to his feet. - -“Go on,” he had bid when she halted. “I’m listening.” And she knew -that he was not only listening but feeling too as he paced to and -fro before her on the other side of the lamp staring down at the -floor for long seconds, glancing at her, then staring away again. - -“Hush!” he had warned her once when someone passed the door; she had -waited and he had stood listening for the step to die away. - -“All right now,” he had told her. - -That was all that he had said; but his tone had told of fear of -anyone else hearing what she was confessing to him; and then there -beat back upon him realization that the chief threat to her must be -from himself. - -“I knew you were up to something, Ruth,” he murmured under his -breath. “Ruth,” he repeated her name, “Ruth Alden! That fits you -better somehow; and what you’ve been doing fits you better, too. -But--” he realized suddenly that this was acknowledging belief in -her--belief beyond his right to have faith in this girl who once on -the boat had tried to save his life and who, upon the battle field, -had saved him and at frightful risk to herself. But he was not -thinking chiefly of that; he was thinking of their intimacies from -the first and particularly of that day when, after she had saved him -from the wreck of his machine, they had driven away from the battle -together. - -“Only two things have happened to me since I went on board the -_Ribot_ which you don’t know all about,” she was adding, “and which -had any connection with the secret I was keeping from you. One was -my meeting with De Trevenac. He stopped me on the street, supposing -I was a German agent. He gave me the orders which I told you he gave -to someone else.” - -“I was supposing,” Gerry replied, “that the entire truth about De -Trevenac was something like that.” - -“You know the entire truth about him now,” Ruth said. “What I told -you before I specifically said was not the entire truth.” - -Gerry winced a little as he turned toward her. “Don’t think I’m -holding that against you--if you’re Ruth Alden, as you say. Only if -you’re German----” - -“German!” Ruth refused the word with a gasp. “Gerry, you can’t -believe that.” - -“What was the other episode?” he asked quickly; and now she told him -about George Byrne; of her attempt to continue to deceive him; of -his mistaking her for his love; then his discovery of the truth and -their talk in the ruined house; of Byrne’s accusation and arrest of -her; of the irruption of the German and his attack; his repetition -of the order to her to go to Switzerland; and of her waiting since. - -“I told him when he accused me and I could not make him believe, -that you would know about me, Gerry!” she cried. “I thought -everything would be all right if only I could get you! And oh--oh -I’ve wanted you to come ever since!” - -She did not mean to say that, he saw; it was not possible that this -cry was planned and practiced for effect. It burst so unbidden, so -unguarded from her breast; and seized upon him like her hand--her -small, soft, strong little hand--closing upon his heart. It told to -him a thousand times better than all the words she had just said, of -her loneliness and fears and dreads fought out all by herself in her -wild, solitary, desperate adventure. And Gerry, gazing down at her, -did not ask himself again whether he believed. Instead he saw her -once more as first he had seen her at Mrs. Corliss’, and his heart -compressed as never it had before as he thought of her, a little -office girl making twenty-five dollars a week, coming to that big, -rich house not knowing who or what she would meet there and standing -up so singly and alone for her country and her faith; he saw her -again as she was on the _Ribot_, surrounded by new terrors and with -perils to her increasing day by day and playing her part so well; -and now passions and sensations which he had fought and had tried to -put off, overwhelmed him again. He felt her, wet and small with all -her clothing clinging to her as he had taken her from a sailor’s -arms and she, looking up at him, had tried so bravely and defiantly -to deny what her cries had just confessed to all the ship--that she -was his; she had gone into the sea for him. He saw and heard and -felt her hands upon him again as he lay helpless under the wreck of -his airplane and she worked beside him, coolly and well, though -machine-gun bullets were striking all about her; and she had freed -him. The sensation of their ride together returned while he had been -almost helpless in the seat of the truck watching her drive and -listening while she talked to him of another man whom she had -liked--the English officer, who had been killed, “1583.” - -As Gerry had envied that other man his comradeship with this girl, -now jealousy rose for the man who, for the wanton moments of his -tragic mistake, had possessed himself of her. She had not wished it; -she had submitted to his arms, to his kisses only perforce. She had -said, indeed, that she had not quite succeeded in submitting; and -Gerry found himself rejoicing in that. But another man had held her; -another had kissed her in full passion; and Gerry was dazed to find -now how he felt at that. - -He had known that she had been his almost from the first; but he had -not known that he had wanted her his until he had had to think of -her as having been someone else’s. - -He gazed down at her now, little, sweet, more beautiful than she had -ever seemed to him before, and alone in danger; and his arms -hungered to hold her; his face burned with blood running hot to -press warm lips against hers. He wanted to feel with her all that -any other man had felt; and she--she would not put him off. But -instead, he had to judge her. So he stood away, his hands behind his -back, one hand locked tight on the other wrist. - -“Well,” he said, “I’m here; what do you want me to do?” - -“You’ll do it for me, Gerry?” - -“What?” - -“Help me to Switzerland.” - -“Still as Cynthia Gail, of course.” - -“Yes.” - -“Then you turn into--whom?” - -“The German girl whom they will take into Germany.” - -“I suppose so. But who is she? Where does she come from? What is her -name?” - -“I don’t know.” - -“What?” - -“She came from Chicago, I suppose.” - -“You suppose; and you don’t know even her name and intend to try to -be her!” - -“It’s possible, Gerry; oh it’s possible, truly. You see I don’t -believe the Germans here in Paris, or those who’ll meet me in -Switzerland, know who I’m supposed to be.” - -“What do you think they’ll know?” - -“That the girl who’s here going under the name of Cynthia Gail, and -doing the work I’m doing, is really one of themselves and that -she’ll appear in Lucerne. Those are the essentials; and so far as -I’ve been able to observe the German-spy system--and you see I’ve -been a part of it for a while----” - -“Yes; I see.” - -“--it seems pretty well reduced to communicating just essentials. Of -course I’ve prepared a German-American name and identity for myself. -If they really know anything in Germany about the girl whom their -Chicago people sent here, they’ll have me; but if they don’t, I’ll -get on. That’s the part I’ve really been preparing myself for all -these months, Gerry; just being Cynthia Gail here was--nothing.” - -He felt himself jerk and recoil at that. Had she been playing a part -with him all this time as well as to others; had this being his been -only a rôle which she had acted? - -“I see,” he said to her curtly. - -“Oh, not nothing to me, Gerry, in the things I’ve had to do when I -wrote Cynthia’s mother and father and when I had to write George -Byrne and when I’ve been seeing her brother. I meant that deceiving -Hubert and his aunt and her friends here and the rest and you, -Gerry, was--” she did not finish. - -“Quite simple,” he completed for her with relief. So the deception -with him had not been hard because, in what would have been hard, -she had not deceived him. “Where’s Hubert?” Gerry questioned now. - -“I don’t know. I don’t think he’s in Paris, now.” - -“You haven’t heard from him recently?” - -“He sent me several postals when I was at Mirevaux; I’ve not heard -from him since.” - -“Then he knows nothing whatever about this?” - -“He doesn’t know that George Byrne found me, Gerry; but he knows I’m -not Cynthia Gail.” - -“Ah! So you told him some time ago, did you?” Jealousy of Hubert now -leaped in him; Hubert had known of her what he could not know. - -“I didn’t tell him; or I didn’t mean to, Gerry,” Ruth explained. “He -knew about me--that is, about Cynthia Gail, of course--and he asked -me questions on the train coming here from Bordeaux which I had to -answer and answered wrongly.” - -“Oh; he caught you, then; he told you so!” - -“He caught me, Gerry; but he didn’t tell me so,” Ruth corrected. “I -didn’t know at all that I’d given him answers which he knew were -false until I found out some family facts from Charles Gail here the -other day. Hubert must have known I wasn’t Cynthia, but----” - -“What?” - -“I guess he trusted to me, myself, that I could not be against our -cause.” - -She had not attempted to make a rebuke of that reply; but Gerry felt -it. - -“Hub hadn’t been put in my position, Ruth,” he defended himself. “He -hadn’t been made responsible for you--in France.” - -“I think that he felt himself wholly responsible for me, Gerry,” -Ruth replied, coloring warmly as she thought of the complete loyalty -of her strange friend. “Only he felt willing to accept the -responsibility.” - -“But he did not know what you were doing!” Gerry protested. “He did -not know that you were accused as a spy!” - -“No,” Ruth said; then, “So I am accused, Gerry?” - -“Byrne accused you, you said. Inquiries certainly have been made; -that puts another problem up to a man.” - -“Yes,” she said. But he knew, as he gazed down at her, that she was -thinking that Hubert would have trusted her just the same. - -Was she manipulating him now, Gerry wondered? Was it possible that -this girl had been playing with and utilizing him in what had just -passed? Had George Byrne come and had all happened which she had -told him or was it conceivable that she had contrived the whole -story, or distorted it for effect upon him to anticipate accusation -against her from other quarters? Had Hubert really found out about -her; or was that too invented for the sake of flicking him into -blind espousal of her plans? Flashes of such sort fought with every -natural reaction to remembrance of his own close comradeship with -her. Impossible; impossible! his impulses iterated to him. But his -four years in France had taught him that the impossible in -relations, in understandings, in faiths and associations between man -and man and man and woman had ceased to exist. In this realization, -at least, his situation was truly distinct from Hubert’s. He -believed in her; at least, he wished to tear his hands apart from -their clench together behind him; he longed to extend them to her; -he burned at thought of lifting her again and feeling her weight in -his arms; and when he looked at her lips, it fired flame to his; -yet---- - -“I don’t flatter myself that I can control the report which is being -compiled about you, Ruth Alden,” he said. “What I have said, and may -say, will only be a part of the data which will determine what’s to -be done with you. For you realize, now, that one thing or the -other’s to be done.” - -“I realize that, Gerry,” she said. - -“You know that in one case they must arrest you and try you--by -court-martial.” - -“Yes.” - -“I may--I don’t know! God help you and me, Ruth Alden, I don’t know -yet--I may have to give part of the evidence which will accuse you! -But though I do--and after I’ve done it--you must know that I’ll be -fighting for you, believing in spite of facts which I may be bound -to witness, that you somehow are all right. I’ll be trying to save -you. I suppose that sounds mad to you; but it’s true.” - -“It doesn’t sound mad to me.” - -“In the other case,” he went on, “in case I can decide honestly with -myself that you cannot possibly be doing anything one jot to -threaten our cause, and in case Byrne has died or does not speak, -then probably you will be passed on to Switzerland and you’ll try to -go into Germany.” - -Ruth waited without reply. - -“Do you see what you’re putting up to me? You’re making me either -accuse you to the French and cause you to be imprisoned and tried; -or, if I believe and let them believe that you’re American, I must -know that I’m sending you on into Germany to face a German firing -squad. For they’ll shoot you down, as they did Edith Cavell, when -they catch you; and they’ll catch you! You haven’t a chance and you -know it! So give it up--give it up, I say! Go tomorrow and cancel -your request; go home or stay here and work only as you have been -doing.” - -“And when I’m taking my train of refugees out of the villages in the -next zone where they strike, know again that I might have done some -bit to prevent it and--I was afraid? What can you think of me? Do -you think I could have done all that I’ve told you I have just for -the sake of working here in Paris? Do you think I could see death -come to so many and care how it comes to me?” - -“It’s not just death,” Gerry said, quivering as he gazed down at -her. “If I could be sure they’d just kill you, it might be easier to -leave your affairs to you. Who owns the right to refuse another his -way to die? But you’re a girl. At first when they may think you one -of themselves, you may be safe; but then they’ll discover you. A -man--or what passes in Germany for a man--probably will find you -out. He----” - -Gerry could say no more; for a moment his resistance to himself -broke and his hands seized her. “They shan’t!” he denied to her -fiercely. “They shan’t!” - -Gently she raised a hand and, as she had upon that occasion before, -she loosened the grasp of his fingers. - -“You’re not to think about what could happen to me; you must think -only of what I may do, Gerry,” she said. - -He released her, as he had before; but this time he caught the -fingers which opposed his; he bent quickly and, carrying her hand to -his lips, he kissed it. - -He drew back from her then; and she closed her other hand over the -fingers which he had kissed and, so holding, she stood gazing up at -him under lashes wet with tears. - -“I’m going now,” he said abruptly. “What I’ll have to do about -you--I don’t know. I suppose you realize that since you’ve applied -for _permission_ for Switzerland, and since I’ve been questioned -about you, probably you are under special observation. So whatever -you think I may be doing about you, you’d better not attempt to move -for the present.” - -“I don’t expect to make any move at all--unless I receive my -_permission_ for Switzerland,” Ruth said. - -“All right.” He turned away and looked for his cap in the corner -where he had left it; then he came back and briefly said good night. - -Out upon the street with the darkness enveloping him, misgivings -tormented him again. The little, dim Rue des Saints Pères was quiet -and almost deserted; all Paris seemed hushed. The spring warmth of -the evening which, in another year, would have brought stir and -gladness which would have thronged the avenues with folk upon idle, -joyous errands tonight brought only oppression. Paris, Gerry knew, -denied danger; yet Paris and, with Paris, all of France; and, with -France, all Europe; and, with Europe, America and the rest of the -world lay menaced that April night as they had not been since the -September of the Marne. - -For in the great bulge in the battle line which the enemy had thrust -between Amiens and Paris, the Germans had established firmly their -positions and there they rested, while to the north beyond Arras -they were striking their second tremendous blow and had overrun -Armentières and were rushing on toward Calais and the Channel. - -Gerry strode on with consciousness of these events almost physically -pressing upon him. In their presence, what was he with his -prejudices and passions, what was that girl who had seared his lips -when he pressed them against her fingers so that still for many -moments afterwards his lips burned and tingled? If she was a German -spy who had been deluding and playing with him, to permit her to -proceed now might work further catastrophe incalculable; whereas -were she what he believed--yes; he believed--she could do no good -but must merely destroy herself if allowed to go on. Had he any -choice but to take the only action which could prevent her? - -Ruth had waited alone in the little parlor after he had gone, with -her left hand clasped protectingly over the fingers which he had -kissed; protectingly she kept that clasp while, standing at the -window, she had watched his figure disappear in the darkness of the -street of the Holy Fathers. Her fingers were hot like his lips; and -while that heat still was strong, she brought her hand to her cheek -and pressed it there. - -That night nothing else occurred; nor upon the next day and night, -nor during the following week did Ruth hear from Gerry as to what he -had done about her; and she encountered nothing to indicate his -decision until, calling again about her request for travel in -Switzerland, suddenly she found permission granted, whereupon she -took the first train for the east of France and the next morning -passed the border into Switzerland. Accordingly it was in the shadow -of Mount Pilatus that she read in a Bern newspaper that three days -previously the American ace, Gerry Hull, had been shot down while -flying over the German lines; but that his companions in the flight, -who had returned, reported that, though falling in enemy territory, -he seemed to have succeeded in making some sort of a landing; so it -was possible that he was not killed but might be a prisoner in the -hands of the Germans. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI: INTO GERMANY - - -The little Republic of Switzerland, always one of the most -interesting spots in the world, became during this war a most -amazing and anomalous country. Completely surrounded by four great -powers at war--and itself peopled by citizens each speaking the -tongue of one or another of its neighbors and each allied by blood -with one or with two or with three, or, perhaps, with all--the Swiss -Confederation suffered a complex of passions, sympathies, and -prejudices quite beyond possible parallel elsewhere. And, as -everyone knows, the Swiss Republic during the four years of the war, -successfully persisted in peace. - -Peace! What a strange condition in which to live, Ruth wondered with -herself as she encountered the astonishments on every hand when she -had crossed the border. She had been in a country at war for not -quite three months--unless you nominated America from April, 1917, -to January, 1918, a nation at war. Ruth did not. As she thought of -her life before she took ship for France, the date of America’s -declaration of a state of war with the Imperial German government -was not fixed in the fiber of her feelings as were many other days -before the date of that declaration--the September 6 of the Marne, -the May 7 of the _Lusitania_, the glorious weeks of the defense of -Verdun. The war declaration of April 6, 1917, seemed now to Ruth but -a sort of official notification of the intentions of the American -people which since then had only continued to develop. That home -country which she had left in the last days of January was not -nearly so different from its peace-time self as war-time France had -proved distinct from war-time America. - -Certainly Ruth’s life had run on almost unchanged by the American -declaration of war, save for the strengthening of her futile, -stifled passions. But that day in January, which had embarked her -for France, had ushered her into a realm which demanded dealings in -realities which swiftly had made all before seem illusory and -phantasmagorical. - -The feeling of dreamland incredulity that she, Ruth Alden, could -actually be experiencing those gloriously exciting days upon the -_Ribot_ and following her arrival in France had been supplanted by -sensations which made it seem that these last weeks had been the -only real ones in her life. When she thought of her old self--of -that strange, shadowy, almost substanceless girl who used to work in -a Madison Street real estate office for Sam Hilton--it was her life -in Chicago which had become incredible. She did not, therefore, -forget her own home; on the contrary, her work which had been -largely the gathering together of scattered family groups and the -attempt to reestablish homes, had made her dwell with particular -poignancy upon memories of the little house in Onarga where her -mother and her sisters dwelt. Regularly Ruth had addressed a letter -to her mother and dropped it in a post-box; she had dared tell -nothing of herself or of her work or give any address by which -anyone could trace her. She simply endeavored to send to her mother -assurance that she was well and in France. Obviously she could not -receive reply from her mother; indeed, Ruth could have no knowledge -that any of her letters ever reached home. She experienced the -dreads which every loving person feels when no news can come; such -experience was only part of the common lot there in France; but it -helped to remove her life at home further into the past. - -Switzerland, strangely and without warning, had undone much that -France and the battle zone had worked within Ruth; the inevitable -relaxing of the strain of work in a country at war had returned Ruth -to earlier emotions. What was she, Ruth Alden, doing here alone in -the Alps? She was standing, as one in a dream, upon the quay before -the splendid hotels of Lucerne and gazing over the blue, wonderful, -mountain-mirroring waters of the Lac des Quatre Cantons. Off to the -southwest, grand and rugged against the azure sky, rose the -snow-capped peaks of Pilatus; to the east, glistening and more -smiling under the spring sun, lay the Rigi. The beauty and wonder of -it was beyond anything which Ruth Alden could have known. Who was -she that she was there? - -Then a boy came by with newspapers and she bought a German newspaper -and one printed in French at Bern. It was this one which informed -her, when she glanced down its columns, that Gerry Hull had been -shot down, and, strangely--and mercifully, perhaps--this knowledge -came not to the girl who, during the past months had been his -friend, his close comrade during days most recent; it seemed to -come, somehow, only to a girl who lay awake early in the morning in -a shabby room at an Ontario Street boarding house, a girl who -day-dreamed about impossible happenings such as knowing Gerry Hull, -but who soon must stir to go down to breakfast at the disorderly -table in the ill-lit room below and then catch a crowded car for Sam -Hilton’s office. - -Such was the work of peace and Pilatus and the Rigi and the images -upon the lake. War--war which had become the only reality, the sole -basis of being--miraculously had vanished. She passed through -throngs speaking German and by other groups conversing in French; -these stood side by side, neither one prisoner to the other; they -had no apparent hostility or animosity. These people, in part at -least, were German and French; but there beyond the border--Ruth -gazed in the direction of Alsace--men of such sorts sprang at one -another with bayonets; and Gerry Hull had been shot down. - -Ruth searched the German newspaper for further word of him; she -looked up a news-stand and bought several papers, both French and -German. In some she discovered the same brief announcement of the -fate of the American pilot; but no further information. But it was -certain that he was dead or a prisoner--wounded, probably, or at -least injured by the crash of his airplane in the “some sort of a -landing” which he had succeeded in making. It had been “some sort of -a landing” which he had made that time he was shot down when she had -gone to him and helped him free. Tales of German treatment of their -prisoners--tales which she could not doubt, having been told her by -men who themselves had suffered--recurred to her and brought her out -of this pleasant, peaceful Lethe from realities in which Lucerne, -for a few hours, had let her live. Tension returned; and, with the -tension, grief but not tears; instead, that determination imbued her -which she had witnessed often enough in others, when loss of their -own was made known to them. Gerry Hull, she thus knew, was her own; -and as she had seen men and women in France giving themselves for -the general cause, and for one particular, personal vengeance, too, -so Ruth thought of her errand into Germany no longer as solely to -gather information for the army but to find and free Gerry Hull, if -he was a prisoner; and if he was killed, then to take some special, -personal vengeance for him. - -She had come to Lucerne--ostensibly--to rest and to recuperate; and -Mrs. Mayhew had given her letters to friends who were staying at one -of the large hotels. Ruth had registered at the same hotel and a -Mrs. Folwell, an American, had taken Ruth under her chaperonage. -Ruth’s name, upon the hotel register, of course stood as Cynthia -Gail; and as Miss Gail, she met other guests in the hotel, which was -one of those known as an “allied hotel” in the row of splendid -buildings upon the water front devoted to the great Swiss peace and -war _industrie des étrangers_. The majority of its guests, that is, -designated themselves as English or French, Italian or -American--whatever in fact they might be. The minority laid claim to -neutral status--Norwegian, Danish, Hollandish, Swedish, Spanish. But -everyone recognized that in this hotel, as in all the others, the -Germans and Austrians possessed representatives among the guests as -well as among the servants. - -“It is the best procedure,” Mrs. Folwell said half seriously to Ruth -upon her arrival, “to lay out all your correspondence upon your -table when you leave the room so that it may be examined, in your -absence, with the least possible disturbance. They will see it -anyway.” - -Ruth was quite willing. Indeed, she was desirous of advertising, as -quickly as possible, the presence of “Cynthia Gail.” She had taken -the trouble to learn a simple device, employing ordinary toilet -powder and pin perforations through sheets of paper, which would -disclose whether the pages of a letter had been disturbed. -Accordingly she prepared her letters, and, merely locking them in -her bureau drawer, she left them in her room. Returning some hours -later, and unlocking the drawer, she found all her letters -apparently undisturbed; but the powder and the perforation proved -competent to evidence that secret examination had been made. - -Of course examination might have been at the hands of allied agents; -for Ruth did not imagine that the Germans and Austrians alone -concerned themselves with war-time visitors to Switzerland; but she -felt sure that the Germans had made their search also. - -After breakfast the next morning Ruth met a man of twenty-eight or -thirty--tall, reddish-haired, and with small gray eyes by name -Christian Wessels, known as a Norwegian gentleman who had made -himself agreeable to the Americans at the hotel. He was an ardent -admirer of American policies and could repeat verbatim the statement -of American war aims given by President Wilson to Congress three -months before. He was a young man of culture, having graduated from -the Swedish University of Upsala and was now corresponding with the -University of Copenhagen. He proved to be a man of cosmopolitan -acquaintance who had visited London, New York, San Francisco. He -spoke English perfectly; and he nursed profound, personal antipathy -to Germany as his family fortunes had suffered enormously through -the torpedoing of Norwegian ships; moreover, he himself had been -traveling from England to Bergen when his ship was destroyed and he -had been exposed to winter weather in an open boat for five days -before being picked up. He was only now recuperating from the -effects of that exposure, meanwhile carrying on certain economic -studies to guide trade relations after the war. - -His method of recuperation, Ruth observed, was to eat as heavily and -as often as occasions permitted; he was a sleek, sensuous young man, -ease-loving and, by his own account, a connoisseur of the arts. He -talked informatively about painting, as about politics. Ruth did not -like him; but when she encountered him as she was wandering about -alone gazing at the quaint houses in the interior of the old town, -she could not be too rude to him when he offered himself as a guide. - -“You have seen the Kapellbrücke, Miss Gail?” - -“Yes; of course,” Ruth said. - -“And the historical paintings? You understand them?” - -“Yes,” Ruth asserted again. - -“To what do they refer?” - -“I don’t know,” Ruth admitted, and accompanied him, in no wise -offended, back to the old bridge over the Reuss; then to the -Mühlenbrücke with its Dance of Death; next he took her away to the -Glacier Garden. - -While they had been in the town with many people close by, his -manner to Ruth had not been unusually offensive; but when they were -away alone, he became more familiar and he took to uncovert -appraisal of her face and figure. - -“You are younger than I had expected,” he commented to her, apropos -of nothing which had gone before but his too steady scrutiny of her -face and her figure. - -“I did not know that you expected anything in regard to me,” Ruth -said. “Mrs. Folwell did not know I was coming until I arrived.” - -“Ah! But your orders were given you--the thirtieth of last month, -were they not?” - -Ruth stiffened. The thirtieth of last month was the day upon which -she had arrived in Paris from Compiègne, the day upon which she had -visited Charles Gail and, upon her return to the Rue des Saints -Pères, had met George Byrne. Only one order had been given her that -day; and that order had been given by the German who struck down -Byrne. No one else had known about that order but herself and the -German; she had told Gerry and he might have told it to the French -authorities. But she could not associate this sleek, sensuously -unpleasant person, going by the name of Wessels, with anyone whom -Gerry could have informed. She readily could connect him with the -German who had for her attempted to strike Byrne dead; and she had -been awaiting--impatiently awaiting--the German agent here at -Lucerne who must accost her. - -“Yes; the thirtieth,” Ruth said. - -“Then why did you not come sooner?” - -“I applied at once for permission,” Ruth defended herself. “It was -delayed.” - -“Ah! Then you had much difficulty?” - -“Delay,” Ruth repeated. “That was all; though I may have been -investigated.” - -“You used Hull again to help you, I suppose.” - -“Yes, I used Hull,” Ruth said. - -Her heart was palpitating feverishly and the compression in her -throat almost choked her while she fought for outward calm. She was -a German girl, she must remember; she had come from her great peril; -she had passed it; this was relief and refuge with one of her own -before whom, at last, she could freely speak; for--though she dared -not yet fully act upon the conviction--she no longer doubted at all -that this Wessels was the enemy agent who was to control her -henceforth. How much did he know about her, or about the girl she -was supposed to be? He knew that she had been ordered here on the -thirtieth of last month; he knew that she had at times “used” Gerry -Hull. - -“We have him now, you know,” Wessels said, watching her with his -disagreeable, close scrutiny. - -“He’s captured?” Ruth said. She had remembered that she must have no -real concern for the fate of an enemy pilot whom she had “used.” - -“Dead or captured; anyway, we have him,” Wessels assured. He had -continued to speak to her in English, though no one was near them; -and if anyone did overhear, the German tongue certainly would arouse -no comment in Lucerne. “Mecklen seems to have only half-done your -other flame.” - -In his conversation at the hotel he had affected the use of slang to -display his complete familiarity with English, Ruth had noticed; and -she caught his meaning instantly. Her other flame was George Byrne, -of course; Mecklen, who had “only half-done” him, must be the German -of the ruined house. - -“Byrne did not die?” Ruth asked. - -“Who’s Byrne?” Wessels returned. “The American infantry lieutenant?” - -“Yes.” - -“No; he did not die. Mecklen shut his mouth; but any day now it may -open. When you did not come, I thought it had.” - -“His mouth opened?” - -“Yes; we had better walk, perhaps. There are many more places of -great interest. I shall show them to you.” - -He pointed Ruth ahead of him down a narrow way; and when she -proceeded obediently, he followed. - -She welcomed the few moments offered for consideration. So George -Byrne had not died! That was a weight from her heart; and Wessels -had only fragmentary facts about her, however he had received them. -He knew that she had had another “flame,” an American infantry -lieutenant; but Wessels had not known his name. - -“You were lucky to get here,” Wessels offered, coming up beside her -when the way widened. Their direction was farther out from the city -and they continued to be quite alone. “But it cooks your chance to -go back.” - -“To France, you mean?” - -“Where else?” - -She had thought of the possibility of being dispatched from -Switzerland not into Germany, but back to France. If someone was to -meet her at Lucerne who could take complete report upon the matters -which she had been supposed to observe, the logical action would be -to return her to work again behind the allied lines. Her original -instructions, received in Chicago, had only implied--they had not -directly stated--that she was to go on into Germany; but she had -clung to the belief that she would go on. And now the failure of -Mecklen to fully do his work with Byrne had settled that doubt for -Ruth; for with Byrne alive and likely at any day to “open his -mouth,” obviously the Germans would not order her into the hands of -the French. - -“We may use you in Russia or Greece; but not France for the present, -or even Italy,” Wessels said. “But first you can visit home, if you -like.” - -He meant the Fatherland, home of the girl whom he believed Ruth to -be; and Ruth knew that she had come to the crisis. If the -fragmentary facts which had been forwarded to this man comprised any -account of the girl whom the Germans in Chicago had meant to locate -and whom they had failed to find when they entrusted their mission -to Ruth, she was stopped now. If not.... - -“I’d like to look in at the old home,” Ruth said. - -“Where is it? What town?” - -“My grandfather lived near Losheim.” - -“Where is that?” - -“It is a tiny town beyond Saarlouis; near the Hoch Wald.” - -“Oh, yes; I know. What is your name?” - -“Luise Brun,” Ruth said. There was a German girl of that name who -had lived in Onarga; Ruth had gone to high school with her and had -known her well. During the early days of the war, Luise had told -Ruth about her relatives in Germany--her grandfather, who had lived -near Losheim until he died the winter before, and her two cousins, -both of whom had been killed fighting. Ruth did not resemble Luise -Brun in any way; and she did not imagine that she could go to -Losheim and pass for Luise; but when questioned about herself, she -had far more detailed knowledge of Luise’s connections to borrow for -her own use than she had had of Cynthia Gail’s. - -Wessels, however, appeared less interested in Ruth’s German -relatives than in herself. “You have been in America most of your -life?” he asked. - -“When I was a baby I was brought to Losheim and again when I was a -little girl,” Ruth said. “My father and mother never forgot the -Fatherland.” - -“Of course not,” Wessels accepted, impatient of this loyal -protestation and desirous to return to the more personal. “I was -saying you are much like an American girl. American girls, I must -admit, attract me.” - -He began speaking to her suddenly in German; and Ruth replied in -German as best she could, conscious that her accent was far from -perfect. - -It appeared to pass with him, however, as the sort of pronunciation -to be expected from a girl reared in America. - -“How old are you now, Luise?” he questioned familiarly. - -“Twenty-five.” - -“Yet _eines mädchen_, I warrant.” - -“I am not married, Herr Baron,” Ruth assured, employing the address -to one of title. Either he was a possessor of baronial rank and -pleased with the recognition of the fact, or the assignment of the -rank was gratifying and he did not correct her. - -“And in America you have no sweetheart of your own--other than your -‘flames?’” - -He spoke the slang word in English, referring to Byrne and to Gerry -Hull, with both of whom, as he believed, she had merely played. - -“No one, Herr Baron,” Ruth denied, but colored warmly. He took this -flush for confession that she was hiding an attachment; and he -laughed. - -“No matter, Luise; he is not here.” - -He was indulgently more familiar with her--a _von_ something or -other, admitting pleasure with the daughter of a man of no rank who -had emigrated to America. Ruth brought up the business between them -to halt further acceleration of this familiarity. - -“I am to make my report to you, Herr Baron?” - -“Report? Ah, yes! No; of course not. Why should you make report here -now? It is simply trouble to record and transmit it. You are not -going back to France, I said, did I not?” - -“Yes.” - -“Then the report will be tomorrow.” - -“Where, Herr Baron?” - -“Where I take you to--headquarters.” - -Ruth went weak and gasped in spite of herself. She had thought that -she was prepared to meet any fate; but now she knew that she had -built upon encountering her risks more gradually. To be taken to -“headquarters”--_das Hauptquartier_--tomorrow! And, though Gerry had -warned her, and she had said that she had recognized and accepted -every sort of danger, still she had not reckoned upon such a -companion as this man for her journey. - -“Ha, Luise! What is the matter?” - -“When do we start, Herr Baron?” - -“The sooner the better; surely you are ready?” - -“Surely; I was thinking--” she groped for excuse and could think of -nothing better than, “What way do we go?” - -“By Basel and Freiburg.” - -“What time, if you please, Herr Baron?” - -“At eight o’clock the train is.” - -“I would like to return now to the hotel, then.” - -He complied and, conversing on ordinary topics in English, they -reentered the town. - -She had no arrangements to make. Wessels was to see to all necessary -details. She could pack her traveling bags in a few minutes; and she -dared not write to anyone of the matters now upon her mind. She -desired to return to the hotel only to be alone; and, as soon as she -had parted from Wessels, she shut herself in her room. - -Long ago--a period passed in incalculable terms of time--she had -determined, locked alone in a room, to undertake proceeding into -Germany. Her purpose from the first, and her promise to the soul of -Cynthia Gail--the vindication which she had whispered to strengthen -herself when she was writing to Cynthia’s parents, and George Byrne, -and when she was receiving their letters, trading upon Cynthia’s -mother’s friends--was that she was to go into Germany. - -It must be at tremendous risk to herself; but she always had -recognized that; she had said to Gerry that she accepted certain -death--and worse than death--if first she might have her chance to -do something. Well, she might have her chance. At any rate, there -was nothing to be done but go ahead without futilely calculating who -Wessels actually was, what he truly believed about her, what he -meant to do. Here was her chance to enter Germany. - -An hour later she descended to dinner with Mrs. Folwell, and noticed -Wessels dining at his usual table in another part of the room. Ruth -informed Mrs. Folwell after dinner that she was starting that -evening for Basel; it was then almost train time and, after having -her luggage brought down, she went alone to the train. - -Wessels also was at the train, but he halted only a moment beside -her to give her an envelope with tickets and other necessary papers. -Ruth entered a compartment shared by two women--German women or -German-speaking Swiss, both of middle age, both suspicious of the -stranger and both uneasily absorbed with their own affairs. No one -else entered; the guard locked the door and the train proceeded -swiftly, and with much screeching of its whistle, through darkened -valleys, through pitch-black, roaring tunnels, out upon slopes, down -into valleys again. - -Late at night the two women slept. Ruth tried to recline in a -corner; and repeatedly endeavored to relax in sleep; but each time, -just before the dissolution of slumber, she started up stiff and -strained. Dawn had not come when the women awoke and the train -pulled into Basel. It was still dark when, after the halt at the -city, all doors again were opened and everyone ordered to leave the -cars. This was the German border. - -Ruth stepped out with the others and rendered up her luggage. She -was aligning herself with the women awaiting the ordeal of the -German examination, when Wessels appeared with a porter, who was -bearing Ruth’s bags. He passed without halting or speaking to her; -but a moment later a German official touched her arm and, pointing -her to go on, he escorted her past the doors before which the others -were in line for examination. He brought her to the train which was -standing on the German side and showed her to an empty compartment, -where her luggage lay in the racks. Ruth sat in the compartment -watching the people--men and women--as they issued from the depot of -examination; they went to different cars of the waiting train; but -when anyone attempted to enter the compartment where Ruth sat, a -guard forbade until Wessels reappeared, got in, and told the guard -to lock the door. - -Immediately the train started. - -“Welcome to the Fatherland, _Liebchen_!” said Wessels, drawing close -beside Ruth as the car gathered speed and rushed deeper into -Germany. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII: THE ROAD TO LAUENGRATZ - - -Ruth moved from him and to the end of the seat. He laughed and again -edged up to her. - -“Where are we bound?” Ruth asked. - -“That’s up to you.” - -“How?” - -“I send you one place, if you cut up; a more pleasant one, if you do -not.” - -“What are the two places?” - -“The first I may leave to your heated imagination; the other--it is -quite pretty, I assure you. Particularly in the spring, with all -nature budding to increase. I own it--in the Schwarzwald, near -Biberach. You know the Schwarzwald?” - -“No,” Ruth said. - -“Indeed; it is not so far from Losheim.” - -He put a taunt into his tone--confident, mocking raillery; and Ruth -knew that he had discovered her; she recognized that from the very -first, probably, he had known about her and that she had never -deceived him. Whether he had received information prior to her -appearance that she was not to be trusted, or whether she had -betrayed herself to him, she could not know; and now it scarcely -mattered. The fact was that he was aware that she was not of the -Germans and that he had brought her into Germany with power to -punish her as might appeal to him. - -“Then you do not know Lauengratz?” he went on. - -“No,” Ruth said. - -“You do not call me Herr Baron now, _Liebchen_,” he reproached, -patting her face. - -Ruth made no reply but the futile movement of slipping to the -cushions opposite, where he permitted her to sit alone, contenting -himself by leaning back and smirking at her. - -He continued to speak to her in English, except for his native -_liebchens_, to show off his perfect familiarity with her language. -For he entirely abandoned all pretense of believing her anything but -American. Near Lauengratz, he informed her, was his favorite estate, -where, when he wished, even the war would not unpleasantly intrude; -he trusted that she would have the good sense to wish to visit -Lauengratz. - -Dawn was brightening, and Wessels--Ruth did not yet know his true -name--switched off the lights in the compartment, lifted the -curtains and motioned to the right and ahead, where, along the -length of Baden, lay the wooded hills of his Schwarzwald--the Black -Forest. The gray light, sweeping over the sky, showed Ruth the -wooded slopes reaching down toward the Rhine, which had formed the -Swiss-German boundary at Basel, but which now flowed almost due -north between the German grand duchy of Baden and the German -Imperial Territory of Alsace, within the western edge of which now -ran the French and American battle line. - -Four railroads, Ruth knew, reached from Basel into Germany--one west -of the Rhine to Mühlhausen; one almost due east and up the river -valley to the Rhinefall; one northeast to Todtnau; the other north -and parallel with the Rhine to Freiburg and Karlsruhe. The train -evidently was traveling this last road with the Rhine valley dimly -in sight to the west. There had come to Ruth the wholly irrational -sensation that Germany, when at last seen, must appear a land -distinct from all others; but nothing in this quiet countryside, -which was disclosing itself to greater and greater distance under -the brightening dawn, was particularly alarming or peculiar. She -viewed a fair and beautiful land of forest, and farm, and tiny, neat -villages very like the Swiss, and with not so many soldiers in -evidence about them as Ruth had noticed upon the Swiss side of the -frontier. - -Perhaps it was the appearance of this fair, quiet countryside which -spared Ruth from complete dismay; perhaps, deep within her, she had -always realized that her venture must prove inevitably fatal, and -this realization now controlled her reactions as well as her -conscious thought; perhaps she was one of those whom despair -amazingly arms with coolness and resource. - -“I will go with you to Lauengratz,” Ruth replied. - -“That’s good!” He patted the seat beside him. “Come back here now.” - -Ruth recognized that she must obey or he would seize her; so she -returned to the other seat and suffered his arm about her. - -“You do not recall me, _Liebchen_?” he asked indulgently. - -He referred, obviously, to some encounter previous to their very -recent meetings in Lucerne. Ruth could recollect no such occasion, -but she feared to admit it lest she offend his vanity. And, indeed, -now that he suggested that they had met before, his features became -to her, not familiar, but it seemed that she had seen him before. - -“Didn’t I see you in Paris, Herr Baron?” she ventured boldly. - -“In Paris precisely,” he confirmed, boastfully. - -“I would have placed you, if I had thought about the possibility of -your having been in Paris,” Ruth explained. - -“Ah! Why should I not have been there? A Norwegian gentleman, -shipwrecked from a vessel torpedoed by the horrid Huns!” He laughed, -self-flatteringly, and squeezed Ruth tighter. “A kiss, _Liebchen_! I -swear, if you are a loyal girl, surely you’ll say I deserve a kiss!” - -He bent his head to take his reward; and Ruth, unable fully to -oppose him, contented herself with turning her cheek, avoiding touch -of his lips upon hers. It satisfied him, or he was in such excellent -humor with himself that he let it content him for the moment. - -The loathing which his embrace stirred within her and the helpless -fury for repulse of him called clear images from Ruth’s -subconsciousness. - -“About two weeks ago--” she began. - -“A week ago Thursday, _Liebchen_.” - -“You brought a child for clothing to the relief rooms where I was -working. I waited upon you.” - -“And following your excellent explanation of your wonderful work, -_Liebchen_, I gave you--” He halted to permit her to recount his -generosity. - -“Two hundred francs, Herr Baron.” - -“Ah! You do recollect. That deserves a kiss from me!” he cried, as -though she had given the other. Accordingly, he rewarded her as -before. “You remember the next time?” - -“It was not there,” Ruth said vaguely. “It was upon the street.” - -“Quite so. The Boulevard Madeleine. There was a widow--a -refugee--who halted you----” - -Ruth remembered and took up the account. “She stopped me to try to -sell a bracelet, a family treasure----” - -“Which you admired, I saw, _Liebchen_.” - -“It was beautiful, but quite beyond my means to buy--at any fair -price for the poor woman,” Ruth explained. - -“So I purchased it!” He went into a pocket and produced the -bracelet. “Put it on, _Liebchen_!” he bid, himself slipping it over -her hand. “Now another kiss for that!” - -He took it. - -“I did not know you were honoring me with your attentions all that -time, Herr Baron.” - -“Oh, no trouble, _Liebchen_; a pleasure, I assure you. Besides, with -more than your prettiness you piqued curiosity. You see, I received -word in Paris when I am there before--a few months ago--that we can -confidently employ one who will appear as Cynthia Gail. The word -came from Chicago, I may tell you, quite roundabout and with some -difficulty. Before we learn more about you--well, Mecklen took it -upon himself to do you a little turn, it seems.” - -Ruth merely nodded, waiting. - -“Then a correction arrives from America, laying bare an -extraordinary circumstance, _Liebchen_. Our people in Chicago sent -us in January one Mathilde Igel, and now they have ascertained -beyond any possible doubt that two days before they dispatched -Mathilde to Paris, she has been interned in America. Who, then, have -our Chicago people sent to us and advised us to employ--who is this -Cynthia Gail? You would not need to be pretty to pique curiosity -now, would you, _Liebchen_?” - -He petted her with mocking protectiveness as he spoke; and Ruth, -recoiling, at least had gained from him explanation of much about -which she had been uncertain. The Germans in Chicago, plainly, had -made such a mistake as she had supposed and had been long in -discovering it; longer, perhaps, in communicating knowledge of it to -Paris. But it had arrived in time to destroy her. Herr Baron -gratuitously continued his explanation. - -“So I took it upon me, myself, to have a squint at our Cynthia and I -got my good look at you, _Liebchen_! What a pretty girl--how do you -Americans say it? A dazzler; indeed, a dazzler! What a needless pity -to add you to the total of destruction, already too great--you so -young and innocent and maidenly? I have never been in favor of -women’s intrusion in war; no, it is man’s business. For women, the -solacing of those who fight--whether with sword or by their wits -behind the enemy’s lines! Not so, _Liebchen_?” - -It was broad daylight--a sunny, mild morning amid wooded hills and -vales with clear, rushing streams, with the Rhine Valley lost now to -the west as the railroad swept more closely to the Black Forest. The -train was slowing and, as it came to halt before a little -countryside station, Wessels took his arm from about Ruth and -refrained, for a few moments, from petting her; he went so far, -indeed, as to sit a little away from her so that anyone glancing -into the compartment would see merely a man and a girl traveling -together. Mad impulses had overwhelmed Ruth when she felt the train -to be slowing--impulses that she must be able to appeal to whoever -might be at the station to free her from this man; but sight of -those upon the platform instantly had cooled her. They were -soldiers--oxlike, servile soldiery who leaped forward when, from a -compartment ahead, a German officer signaled them for attention; or -they were peasant women and old men, only more unobtrusive and -submissive than the soldiers. Appeal to them against one of their -“gentlemen” and one who, too, undoubtedly was an officer! The idea -was lunacy; her sole chance was to do nothing to offend this man -while he flattered himself and boasted indulgently. - -The train proceeded. - -He put his arm about Ruth again. “So I took upon myself the -responsibility of saving you, _Liebchen_! You have yet done us no -harm, I say; you mean us harm, of course. But you have not yet had -the opportunity.” - -Ruth caught breath. He did not know, then, of her betrayal of De -Trevenac? Or was he merely playing with her in this as in the rest? - -“What is it, _Liebchen_?” he asked. - -“Nothing.” - -“So I say to myself, I can let her go on and blunder across our -border in some way and, of course, surely be shot; or I may take a -little trouble about her myself and spare her. You do not make -yourself overthankful, _Liebchen_.” - -“I am trying to, Herr Baron.” - -“A kiss, darling, to your better success!” He gave it. “Now I will -have you compose yourself. A few more kilometers and the next stop -is ours. Lauengratz is not upon the railroad; it is not so modern, -nor is my family so new as that.” - -He gazed out complacently while the train ran the few kilometers -swiftly. It drew into a tiny woodland station of the sort which Ruth -had frequently observed--a depot with switch tracks serving no -visible community, but with a traveled highway reaching back from it -toward a town hidden within the hills. No one waited here but the -station master and a man in the uniform of a military driver, who -stood near a large touring car. He was gazing at the train windows -and, seeing Wessels, he saluted. He came forward as the train -stopped and, when the compartment door was opened, he took Wessels’ -traveling bag. - -“Those in the racks, too,” Wessels directed curtly in German. Those -were Ruth’s; and she shrank back into the corner of the seat as the -man obediently took them down. Wessels stepped out upon the platform -and turned to Ruth. - -No one else was leaving the train at that station; indeed, the door -of no other compartment opened. There was no one to whom Ruth might -appeal, even if appeal were possible. Wessels stood patiently in the -doorway; behind him rose quiet, beautiful woodland. - -“Come,” he commanded Ruth, stretching a hand toward her. - -She arose, neglecting his hand, and stepped from the train. The -guard closed the door behind her; immediately the train departed. -The station master--an old and shrunken man--approached, abjectedly, -to inquire whether Hauptmann von Forstner had desires. Herr -Hauptmann disclaimed any which he required the station master to -satisfy; and the old man retired swiftly to the kiosk at the farther -end of the platform. - -The driver, who had finished securing the luggage behind his car, -opened the door of the tonneau and waited there at attention. - -“Welcome to Lauengratz, _gnädiges Fräulein_.” Von Forstner dropped -the insulting _liebchens_ to employ his term of respectful and -gallant address; and before the soldier-servant he refrained from -accents of too evident irony. Ruth’s position must be perfectly -plain to the man, she thought; but it pleased the master to pretend -that he concealed it. - -She made no reply; she merely stood a moment longer gazing about her -to get her bearings. She had no conscious plan except that she -recognized that she was to be taken into some sort of duress from -which she must attempt to escape; and if she succeeded she would -require memory of landmarks and directions. Von Forstner’s eyes -narrowed as he watched her and divined what was passing through her -mind; but he pretended that he did not. - -“Have I not said it was beautiful here?” he asked. - -“It is very beautiful,” Ruth replied and, as he motioned to her, she -preceded him into the car and sat upon the rear seat with him. - -The car, which was fairly new and in good condition, drove off -rapidly. It evidenced to Ruth either that reports of the scarcity of -motor cars in Germany had been exaggerated or that Captain von -Forstner was a person of sufficient importance to possess a most -excellent vehicle from the vanishing supply. It followed a narrow -but excellent road through forest for half a mile; it ran out beside -cleared land, farm, and meadows, where a few cattle were grazing. A -dozen men were working in a field--big, slow-moving laborers. - -Von Forstner observed that Ruth gazed at them. “Russians,” he -explained to her. “Some of my prisoners.” - -He spoke as if he had taken them personally. “I have had, at various -times, also French and English and Canadians; and I expect some -Americans soon. I have asked for some; but they have not appeared -against us frequently enough yet for us to have a great many.” - -“Still we have already not a few of you,” Ruth returned quietly. Her -situation scarcely could become worse, no matter what she now said; -and, as it turned out, von Forstner was amused at this defiance. - -“If they are much like the Canadians they will not be much good -anyway,” he said. - -“For fighting or farm work, you mean?” - -Von Forstner hesitated just a trifle before he returned, “They can -stand nothing; they die too easily.” - -The car was past the fields where the Russians toiled and was -skirting woodlands again; when fields opened once more quite -different figures appeared--figures of women and of a familiarity -which sent the blood choking in Ruth’s throat. They were French -women and girls, or perhaps Belgians of the sort whom she had seen -tilling free, French farms; but these were captives--slaves. And -seeing them, Ruth understood with a flaming leap of realization what -von Forstner had meant about the Russians. They were captives also, -and slaves; but they had never known freedom. - -But to see these women slaves! - -Von Forstner himself betrayed especial interest in them. He spoke -sharply to the driver, who halted the car and signaled for the -nearest of the slaves to approach. - -“Where are you from?” he questioned them in French. They named -various places in the invaded lands; most of them had been but -recently deported and had arrived during von Forstner’s absence. Two -of the group, which numbered eight, were very young--girls of -sixteen or seventeen, Ruth thought. They gazed up at Ruth with wide, -agonized eyes and then gazed down upon the ground. Ruth glanced to -von Forstner and caught him estimating them--their faces, their -figures, as he had estimated her own. She caught him glancing from -them to herself now, comparing them; and her loathing, and -detestation of him and of all that he was, and which he represented -suddenly became dynamic. - -He did not see that; but one of the French girls, who had glanced up -at her again, did see; and the girl looked quickly down at once as -though fearing to betray it. But Ruth saw her thin hands clenching -at her sides and crumpling the rags of her skirt; and from this Ruth -was first aware that her own hands had clenched and through her -pulled a new tension. - -“Go on,” von Forstner ordered his driver. - -The car sped along the turning road into woods; the road followed a -stream which rushed down a tiny valley thirty or forty feet below. -At times the turns gave glimpses far ahead and in one of these -glimpses Ruth saw a large house which must be the _Landgut_--or the -manor--of this German country-place. - -“See! We are almost home, _Liebchen_!” Von Forstner pointed it out -to her when it was clearer and nearer at the next turn. He had his -hand upon Ruth again; and the confident lust of his fingers set hot -blood humming dizzily, madly in Ruth’s brain. The driver, as though -responding to the impatience of his master, sent the car spinning in -and out upon the turns of the road beside the brook. In two or three -minutes more--not longer--the car would reach the house. Now the car -was rushing out upon a reach of road abruptly above the stream and -with a turn ahead sharper, perhaps, than most. In spite of the speed -the driver easily could make the turn if unimpeded; but if -interfered with at all.... - -The plan barely was in Ruth’s brain before she acted upon it. -Accordingly, there was no chance for von Forstner to prevent it; nor -for the driver to oppose her. She sprang from her seat, seized the -driver’s right arm and shoulder, as he should have been turning the -steering-wheel sharply; and, for the necessary fraction of a second, -she kept the car straight ahead and off the road over the turn. - -When a motor car is going over, crouch down; do not try to leap out. -So a racing driver, who had been driving military cars in France, -had drilled into Ruth when he was advising her how to run the roads -back of the battle lines. Thus as the car went over she sprang back -and knelt on the floor between the seats. - -The driver fought for an instant, foolishly, to bring the car back -onto the road; then he flung himself forward and down in front of -his seat. Von Forstner, who had grabbed at Ruth too late, had been -held standing up when the car turned over. He tried to get down. -Ruth could feel him--she could not look up--as he tumbled half upon -her, half beside her. She heard him scream--a frightful, hoarse -man’s scream of mad rage as he saw he was caught. Then the car was -all the way over; it crushed, scraped, slid, swung, turned over; was -on its wheels for a flash; at least air and light were above again; -it pounded, smashed, and slid through brush, against small trees; -and was over once more. It ground and skewed in soft soil, horribly; -cold water splashed below it. It settled, sucking, and stopped. - -The sound of water washing against metal; for a moment the hiss of -the water on the hot engine; then only the gurgle and rush of the -little brook. - -Ruth lay upon her back in the stream with the floor of the car above -her; below her was von Forstner’s form, and about him were the -snapped ribs of the top with the fabric like a black shroud. - -At first he was alive and his face was not under water; for he -shouted frantic oaths, threats, appeals for help. Wildly he cursed -Ruth; his back was broken, he said. He seemed to struggle at first, -not so much to free himself as to grasp and choke her. Then the back -of the car dammed the water and it rose above his face. He coughed -and thrashed to lift himself; he begged Ruth to help him; and, -turning as far about as she could, she tried to lift his head with -her hands, but she could not. The water covered him; and, after a -few moments, he was quite still. - -The dam at the back of the car, which had caused the pool to rise -that high, failed to hold the water much higher; it ran out of the -sides of the car before it covered Ruth. It soaked her through; and -the weight of the machine held her quite helpless. But she had air -and could breathe. - -From the forward seat came no sound and no movement. The driver -either had been flung out in one of the tumbles of the car or, like -his master, he had been killed under it. Ruth could only wonder -which. - -But someone was coming down the embankment from the road now; more -than one person; several. Ruth could hear their movements through -the underbrush. Now they talked together--timidly, it seemed, and at -a little distance. Now they approached, still timidly and talking. - -These were men’s voices, but strange in intonations and in language. -It was not German, or French, or any tongue with which Ruth was at -all familiar. It must be Russian. The timid men were Russians--some -of the slaves! - -One of them touched the car and, kneeling, peered under it. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII: THE MESSAGE IN CIPHER - - -Ruth could see dull eyes in a big, stupid face. The man said -something with the inflection of a question. She could not make out -the words, but obviously he was asking if anyone was alive under the -car. So Ruth answered. The face disappeared; and she heard -consultation. Soon several men tramped in the water and thrust -timbers under the side of the car and tilted it. Large, rough hands -reached under and caught Ruth and pulled her out. - -She sank limp when the hands released her, gently enough, and laid -her upon the sloping bank above the stream. The man who had rescued -her had four companions, all of them Russians. They engaged -themselves immediately in dragging out Captain von Forstner and then -exploring under the car. But they found no one else. Ruth discovered -the driver lying a rod or so beyond her and farther up the slope. -Plainly he had been thrown out and the car had crushed him. The -Russians had seen him before they had come to the car, and when Ruth -made signs to them to go to the man they shook their heads, -repeating a sentence which meant--she had no doubt--that the man was -dead. They repeated the same words about von Forstner. - -Ruth struggled up, dizzily, to find herself battered and with -muscles bruised and strained; but she had escaped without broken -bones or disabling injury. A German soldier, armed with a rifle, -joined the group of Russians about Ruth. Evidently he was a guard -who had been at some distance when the car went from the road. - -“You are much injured, _gnädiges Fräulein_?” the soldier asked her -solicitously and respectfully. - -“Only a little,” Ruth replied, collecting strength again and -regaining clearness of thought. - -When the Russians first had come to her aid she had thought of them -as helping her, as an American against the Germans; but now she was -cool enough to realize how absurd that idea was. These peasant -slaves were not moved by any political emotions and, if they had -been, they were incapable of recognizing her as an American and the -possessor of any particular sympathy for them. She was to them a -lady--a companion of a master who undoubtedly had mistreated them; -but when they had found that master helpless they had been below any -instincts of revenge upon him. They had considered his misfortune a -lucky chance given them to perform some service which could win them -favor, and now that the master was dead they sought that favor from -the mistress. - -And much the same considerations governed the German guard. It was -plain from his manner of address to her that he could not have -witnessed the accident to the car, or at least he could not have -observed that she had caused it. She was to him a friend of -Hauptmann von Forstner, who had passed riding beside Herr -Hauptmann--a lady, of the class of persons with whom Herr Hauptmann -associated and whose authority at all times and in all matters the -private soldier was accustomed to accept. - -The authority which Ruth thus possessed was extremely local, of -course; its realms might not run beyond the little leafy valley of -the brook, and it surely was temporary; but locally and for the -instant it was hers. - -“You desire, _gnädiges Fräulein_,” the soldier asked her, “that I -stay here and send one of them,” he indicated the Russians, “with -word to the manor or that I go?” - -“You go,” Ruth directed, struggling up to her feet. “I am quite -strong again and you can do nothing for Herr Hauptmann.” - -“No, _gnädiges Fräulein_, I can do nothing for Herr Hauptmann,” the -soldier agreed. Of himself he was doubtful whether he should yet -leave his _gnädiges Fräulein_, but he had been commanded, so he -went. - -The Russians had withdrawn a little; and after the German soldier -was gone Ruth stood alone, gazing down at von Forstner’s body. She -had killed von Forstner and his servant. She had killed them in -self-defense and by an act which might have destroyed her as well as -them, yet horror shrank her as she saw them lying dead--horror which -first had seized her at the idea of individually dealing in death -that day long ago when she stood with Gerry in the parlor of the -_pension_ upon the Rue des Saints Pères, and when he had told her -that the French had taken Louis de Trevenac upon her information, -and were to execute him. - -If she had killed these men solely to save herself, she must cast -herself down beside them. But she had not! That sudden, mad deed -which she had just performed--and in the consequences of which she -was just beginning to be involved--sprang not from self-defense. It -was not sense of escape from personal violation which at this moment -chiefly swayed her; it was a sensation of requital, in petty part, -for the savageries of that sweep through Belgium of which she had -heard four years ago; requital for the _Lusitania_; for Poland and -Serbia; for the bombing of Paris and for that long-range gun whose -shells she had seen bursting; for Grand’mère Bergues’ daughter and -for the other refugees upon the Mirevaux road; for the French girls -and women in slavery only a mile from here; for.... - -She raised her hands to her hair, which was wet, as she was wet all -over; she arranged her hair and her clothing as decently as she -could. A motor car was coming upon the road from the manor. It -stopped directly above, and the soldier and a man in civilian -clothes got out; the driver of the car remained in his seat and -maneuvered to turn the car about in the narrow road. - -The man in civilian clothes, who came down the slope toward the -stream, was forty or forty-five years old, Ruth thought. He was a -large man, florid-faced and mustached, with the bearing not of -servant but of a subordinate--an overseer of some sort, Ruth -guessed, or perhaps a resident manager of the estate. - -“Good morning, _gnädiges Fräulein_,” he saluted Ruth, breathless -from his haste and agitation. “I am Dittman,” he made himself known. -“What a terrible accident has occurred! Herr Hauptmann is dead, they -say; and Josef, too!” He gave barely a glance toward the body of the -chauffeur, but knelt at once beside von Forstner’s. - -“They are both dead,” Ruth said quietly. It was plain that von -Forstner had been Dittman’s master and that Dittman, for the moment -at least, accepted Ruth as a friend of von Forstner’s, as the -soldier had. - -“What shall I order done?” Dittman appealed to Ruth, rising. - -“Take Hauptmann von Forstner’s body to the house, of course,” Ruth -directed. “Who is at the house?” she inquired. - -“Besides the servants, this morning only Herr Adler.” - -“Who is Herr Adler?” - -“Why, he is Hauptmann von Forstner’s secretary.” - -“Then why did he not himself come at once?” - -“Word arrived that Herr Hauptmann was dead,” Dittman explained. -“Herr Adler did not think that you would require him here, _gnädiges -Fräulein_. Since Herr Hauptmann was dead it was more necessary than -ever for Herr Adler to remain at the house. Oberst-Lieutenant von -Fallenbosch communicates by telephone at this time in the morning; -immediately he must be informed.” - -“Of course,” Ruth said. - -She was aware that Dittman was observing her more and more -curiously, not so much because of her questions and of her ignorance -of the household affairs of Captain von Forstner, she thought, as -because of her accent. Dittman apparently was not surprised that the -lady companion of his master did not know about Adler; and even the -fact that she spoke German with an undisguisable foreign accent did -not stir suspicion, but only curiosity. Ruth apparently had taken -the right tone with this puffing underling by offering no -explanations whatever about herself and by demanding them of others. - -“You are wet, _gnädiges Fräulein_,” he reminded her solicitously. “I -brought the motor car for you. If you will proceed I shall see to -all things for Herr Hauptmann.” - -“Hauptmann von Forstner carried upon himself certain papers for -which I now must be responsible,” Ruth returned to Dittman. - -“Ah, yes; of course, _gnädiges Fräulein_.” - -“You may obtain them for me.” - -Dittman knelt again, obediently, and carefully and methodically went -through von Forstner’s pockets. A few minutes before, when Ruth had -been alone but for the Russian slaves, she had realized that she -ought to obtain the papers in those pockets, but her revulsion at -making the search had halted her. Now that proved altogether -fortunate. Her fate here hung upon little things; and one of those -trifles which supported her, undoubtedly, was that she had waited -for this Dittman before allowing disturbance of any of von -Forstner’s effects. - -Dittman gathered together everything from the pockets--money, keys, -penknife, cigarette case, revolver, and memorandum book, besides two -thick packets of folded papers; and he offered all to Ruth, who -accepted only the packets and the memorandum book. Dittman assisted -her to climb the slope to the waiting car. - -“My bags, Dittman,” Ruth said to her escort when she was seated. -They had been held fairly well away from the water by the position -of the wrecked car; and there was more than a chance that the -leather had kept dry some of the clothing within. Ruth did not know -what lay before her but she could meet it better in fresh garments. -Dittman ordered one of the Russians to bring up her bags and place -them in the car. - -As it sped away to the south Ruth sat back alone in the rear seat. -Evidently she had been expected at the manor house; from the border -or, perhaps, from Basel or from Lucerne Captain von Forstner had -warned his household that he was bringing her with him. Had he -described to his inferiors the relationship of his companion to him? -Almost surely he had not. If they had arrived together, in the -manner planned by von Forstner, his servants swiftly enough could -have arrived at their own conclusions; but now that von Forstner was -dead--accidentally, as all believed--matters lay so that his -servants might judge the nature of her association with their master -by the manner in which Ruth bore herself. - -Oberst-Lieutenant von Fallenbosch, who communicated by telephone at -this time in the morning, suggested perilous complications, but -perils were all about her now, in any case. The bold course upon -which she was embarked was--if you thought about it--safer, in -reality, than any other. - -So Ruth steadied herself as the car, clearing the woods, ran beside -open acres to a huge and old German manor house set baldly upon a -slope above the stream. A man was walking upon the terrace before -the door; he sighted the car and started quickly to meet it, but as -the car sped up he returned to the terrace and stood upon the lower -step at the edge of the drive. He was a short, broadly built but -nervous little man, upwards of thirty, spectacled, and with thick -hair cropped somewhat after the military fashion; but he was not in -uniform and his bearing was that of student or professional man, -rather than of the military. - -When the car stopped he did not wait for the driver or one of the -servants, who now had come out upon the terrace, but he himself -opened the door and stood back quickly, staring at Ruth anxiously -and rubbing together his fat red hands. - -“Herr Adler?” Ruth asked as she stood up. - -“Yes, _gnädiges Fräulein_. You have come from the captain?” - -Her drenched condition was witness to the fact, and Ruth observed -that, besides, his little eyes sought the packets of papers and the -memorandum book which she held. - -“I have come from America and more recently from France,” Ruth said, -stepping down. They were alone now as Adler walked with her across -the terrace. “I have come from Lucerne with Captain von Forstner.” - -“Yes, _gnädiges Fräulein_, I know; I know. And he is dead, they tell -me. It is true that he is dead?” - -“He is dead,” Ruth confirmed. And she saw that the fact of von -Forstner’s death bore far different consequences to Adler than to -Dittman. The secretary was charged now with responsibilities which -had been his master’s; it was these, more than the physical accident -of von Forstner’s death, which overwhelmed and dismayed him. “But I -have recovered his reports and personal memoranda,” Ruth assured. - -“Yes; yes. That is very fortunate.” - -“Which I shall go over with you as quickly as I can change to dry -clothes, Herr Adler,” she continued. She did not know whether the -secretary had been about to make demand for his master’s papers; if -he had, she had anticipated him. “Oberst-Lieutenant von Fallenbosch -has telephoned?” Ruth asked. - -“Ten minutes ago, _gnädiges Fräulein_.” - -“Of course you told him that Captain von Forstner is dead.” - -“Of course.” - -“Well, what is he to do?” - -“He is coming here at once.” - -“That’s good,” Ruth managed, steadily enough. “Where was he when he -telephoned.” - -“At Offenburg, _gnädiges Fräulein_.” - -“Then he will arrive in about an hour?” - -“At noon, he said. But first there is much,” Adler’s nervousness -increased, “much to be made ready for him.” - -“I will not delay,” Ruth promised. - -They had entered the hall--a large, dark hall with a wide, black -stairway rising at the side. - -“I shall send your bags instantly to your room, _gnädiges -Fräulein_,” Adler assured. He halted, giving her over to a maid -servant for guidance. “Show Fräulein Brun to her apartment,” Adler -ordered. “I shall send stimulant,” he added. - -So she was Fräulein Brun and she had been expected here! Captain von -Forstner had sent word that he was bringing her and had ordered her -apartment prepared; and his advices, even to Adler, had ended with -that. - -Ruth followed the maid into a bedroom and boudoir, where, a moment -later, her bags were brought. Examination proved that they had -served to keep her packed clothing dry; and, with the maid’s -assistance, Ruth took off her soaked garments. The maid took down -her hair and brushed it out to dry; another maid appeared with the -stimulant which Adler had promised and also with hot broth and -biscuit. Ruth took this gladly and felt stronger. She let herself -relax, half dressed, in a chair while the maid fanned and brushed -her hair. From the window she saw a car coming to the manor with von -Forstner’s body; a few moments later she heard the feet of bearers -pass her room door. They appeared to take him into apartments just -beyond--those which had been his own, undoubtedly. Ruth instructed -the maid to do her hair and she would finish dressing. - -Dismissing the maid, she remained alone in the room. She had kept -with her the papers which von Forstner had carried, and while she -had been under observation she had refrained from examining them. -Now she opened the packets and found that those papers which had -lain inside were almost dry; and swiftly spreading them before her -she saw that they appeared to be typewritten observations upon -economic matters of the character which a neutral Norwegian -gentleman might make. They must be, in fact--Ruth knew--cipher -memoranda of very different matters; they would probably not contain -any summaries, for von Forstner could carry all summaries in his -head. He would have committed to writing only details and -items--some of them petty, taken by themselves, but others of more -importance. They would have to do with conditions in France, but -while meant for German information their contents must carry quite -as important advices for the allies, for they would betray the -particular locations with which the Germans were concerning -themselves and thereby disclose the front of the next attack. - -Ruth sorted the pages over swiftly and, finding that their texts -fell under nine heads, she removed the twenty-eight pages which were -under five of these heads; the other twenty-three pages she restored -to the two packets. She thrust the removed pages under her corset; -and, carrying the others in their wet packets, she left the room. -Descending the wide, black stairs, she found Adler pacing the -hallway as he had paced the terrace. - -He led her into a large, high, dark paneled, mullion-windowed room -where old armor and battle maces stood upon the black walls above -modern office filing cases and with an ancient carved table topped -with glass and desk blotter; before this was an ordinary swivel -chair. Adler motioned Ruth to this as he put out his hand for the -packets. - -“The reports now, please, _gnädiges Fräulein_!” Adler asked. “A -transcription immediately must be ready for Oberst-Lieutenant von -Fallenbosch! He will not find it like talking with Hauptmann von -Forstner; but we must do what we can!” - -Ruth handed him the packets and she sat down in the swivel chair -while, on the other side of the glass table top, Adler spread out -the sheets. Their number appeared to satisfy him; at least he -questioned nothing, but, having the pages in order, he unlocked a -small, flat drawer and took out three paper stencils. The apertures -through the paper differed, Ruth saw, with each stencil. Adler laid -them in order over the first three sheets, and, bending, read to -himself the words which remained in sight under the stencils. Ruth -could not see what he read nor the brief transcript he made with -pencil upon a pad. He shifted the stencils to the next three sheets, -read the result again, made his transcript, and again shifted. - -Adler came to the end and gazed up at Ruth. The other women whom -Hauptmann von Forstner had invited to Lauengratz and who had used -those apartments above evidently had been of unquestionable loyalty, -for the secretary, when he gazed up at this guest of his dead -master, did not challenge her. He sought information to prepare -himself for the visit of Oberst-Lieutenant von Fallenbosch, not half -an hour away. - -“Besides these, _gnädiges Fräulein_,” he appealed anxiously, “did -Herr Hauptmann make no verbal mention of other matters?” - -Ruth shook her head. “Personal matters between him and myself,” she -said. “But he did not go into the reports of others with me at all. -In fact, he would not even receive my report; since I was coming -into Germany I could make it myself to Oberst-Lieutenant -Fallenbosch. That would be safer, he said.” - -This true recital threw Adler into gesturing despair. “Exactly; it -is precisely what he would do! It is safest; it is most discreet to -put nothing, or as little as possible, upon paper. That is always -his obsession! So discreet! When I say to him it is not always safer -he laughs or tells me to mind my own business! Discretion! It is -because he is so obsessed by it that he directs our secret service -for the district. ‘Have merely an ordered mind, a good memory, -Adler,’ he always says to me, ‘and nothing will be misplaced, -nothing will get astray, nothing will be obtained by others.’ - -“‘Yes, Herr Hauptmann,’ I say, ‘but suppose something happen to that -ordered mind and that good memory! What then?’ Ah! He laughs at me -and pats me on the back so indulgently. But where is that ordered -mind; where now is that memory to which the most important things -may be committed? Well, he is away from the trouble,” the secretary -raged in his dismay. “He can hear nothing which Oberst-Lieutenant -von Fallenbosch may say of him. But I--I will get it.... Yet you can -make your report to him. At least, that much may be added. You have -come from where, Fräulein Brun? Which front?” he beseeched -hopefully. - -“From Picardy,” Ruth said. “I had the honor to be assigned to Roisel -and to attach myself, particularly, to the British Fifth Army.” - -“Ah! I salute you, _gnädiges Fräulein_, and your comrades for the -wonderful work you have done. But the importance of that is past, -Fräulein Brun! Since then where have you been?” - -“My duty, as I interpreted it, was to retreat with the British; so I -was swept back with them to Compiègne. Since then, as I explained to -Herr Hauptmann, passport difficulties detained me in Paris.” - -“Then all from Reims to Soissons is in Herr Hauptmann’s ordered -mind! It is, as all the most essential would be, in his ‘good -memory’! And, by the latest, today the report was to start to great -headquarters!” - -The secretary jerked about from Ruth and hurried back and forth -across the room, head down and clapping his hands loudly together in -his despair; and Ruth, watching him, sat stark. The importance of -the Picardy front was past, he had said--that front where, in the -tremendous assaults of March, the Germans had thrust their great -salient between Amiens and Paris and where all the allies were -working, day and night, strengthening their lines against a new -attack! The Flanders front, where still the German armies were -hurling themselves toward the channel? Adler did not even mention -that. The “most essential” was the front from Reims to Soissons, all -quiet now and one which--so far as Ruth knew--the allies expected to -remain quiet and where they yet were unprepared for a great attack. - -But there the next tremendous assault must be coming; and it was so -near that, by the latest, today report of conditions upon that front -was to start to great headquarters! Well, whatever was written about -that front Ruth had now in the papers folded tight against her body -and what von Forstner had entrusted to his ordered mind was lost -forever! Keenly she watched Adler while, still striking his hands -together in his helplessness, he strode swiftly up and down. - -He spun about to her suddenly, and for an instant Ruth believed he -was about to challenge her. But the secretary could not yet reach -suspicion of the comrade of his Herr Hauptmann and for whom -Hauptmann von Forstner had instructed rooms to be made ready beside -his own and who herself had completed the journey to Lauengratz -alone and of her own will and bearing Herr Hauptmann’s papers. - -“You removed these yourself from Herr Hauptmann’s body?” - -“No; Dittman procured them for me. I was somewhat injured myself, -you see,” she explained her neglect. “And a little faint, at first.” - -“Of course; of course! But Dittman is a thick skull! He might not -have suspected where Herr Hauptmann might have concealed the most -important memoranda!” Adler livened with hope. “And there were -Russians, I understand, who first found you and dragged out Herr -Hauptmann. They are mere brutes, incapable of understanding -anything. Nevertheless they may have meddled. I shall send and see -and at once myself examine the body of Herr Hauptmann!” - -He turned about and gazed at his papers; he swept them together and -into a drawer. The stencils, by which he had read the ciphers, went -with them. “You will remain here, _gnädiges Fräulein_,” he half -commanded, half requested, and he hastened from the room. - -Ruth delayed only the instant necessary to make certain that he had -gone upstairs. Suspicion which now turned upon Dittman and upon the -Russians swiftly must approach her; moreover, the hour of arrival of -Oberst-Lieutenant von Fallenbosch was almost here. By her stroke of -boldness and of luck she had succeeded in temporarily overreaching -the secretary whom she had found so unbalanced by the death of his -superior. But she could not possibly hope to dupe von Fallenbosch. -She must fail with him as miserably as she had failed with von -Forstner. And to attempt with him and to fail involved, now, not -only her own destruction but delivery into German hands of that most -essential information which she had intercepted, and loss to the -allies of the knowledge of German plans. - -She opened the drawer which Adler had just closed and she took out -the sheets of von Forstner’s reports and the stencils. She went out -into the hall and, finding it empty, she passed quickly to a door on -the side of the house which, she believed, was not commanded from -the windows of the room where Captain von Forstner’s body lay. In -that direction, also, the forest lay nearer to the house; Ruth went -out and walked toward the trees. An impulse to run almost controlled -her, but she realized that she must be in sight of servants, who -might not question her strolling out away from the house in the warm -spring sunshine but who would immediately report anything which -resembled flight. So she went slowly until she reached the forest; -then she ran--wildly and breathlessly. - -She found a path, well marked and much used and easy to run upon. -Other paths, almost overgrown, opened into it here and there. Ruth -ran by the first few of these; then, choosing arbitrarily, she took -one of the disused ways which twisted north--she noticed--through -denser thickets of budding oaks and beeches; it ascended, too, -bending back and forth up a mountainside which brought the darker -boughs of the black firs drooping about her while, underfoot, the -ground alternately became stony bare and soft with velvety cushions -of pine needles. - -She stopped at last, exhausted and gasping; her pulses were pounding -so in her head that she scarcely could hear, and the forest on every -side limited sight. But so far as she could see and as well as she -could hear there was no alarm of anyone following her. It seemed -absolutely still on the mountainside except for the movement of the -noon breeze in the tree tops; now from somewhere far away and off to -the right she heard the ring of an ax and, after a minute, the fall -of a tree; now the sound of the ax again. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX: THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY - - -Ruth sank down upon the ground in a warm, sunny spot where the trees -were more scant than they had been below. They were dense enough, -however, to shield her from sight of anyone in the valley, while -they permitted a view down the mountainside. Off to the west she -could see a stretch of railroad; nearer she got a glimpse of a -highway; she saw horsemen and several slower specks, which must be -men on foot. Oberst-Lieutenant von Fallenbosch had arrived, Ruth -believed, and Adler had started the pursuit after her. But as she -thought of the maze of pathways through the forest she believed that -she was safe for a while--unless a large number of the prisoners -joined in the search and if Adler did not use dogs to track her. - -But she could not make herself safer by farther aimless flight. Here -seemed to be as secure a spot as she might find for the examination -of the documents which she had procured; here was the place to plan. -She laid out upon a rock the pages of von Forstner’s report, and, -placing the stencils, she studied them in series of three, as she -had seen Adler do. These pages--those which Adler had read, together -with those which she had kept concealed--told a plain, certain -story. The Germans at the present moment were concerning themselves -with the minutest details of events before the Reims-Soissons line -of the allies; other sectors, in comparison, were disregarded; -before Reims and Soissons the enemy were maturing their great -attack! - -Ruth, having read, gathered together the pages and sat in the sun -gazing away over the Rhine to the west. The feeling of fate--the -touch of destiny--which had exalted and transformed her upon that -cold January morning in Chicago quickened her again. Something -beyond herself originally had sent her into this tremendous -adventure, throughout which she had followed -instinct--chance--fate--whatever you called it--rather than any -conscious scheme. At the outset she had responded simply to impulse -to serve; to get into Germany--how, she did not know; to do -there--what, she had not known. At different times she had formed -plans, of course, many plans; but as she thought back upon them now -they seemed to her to have contemplated only details, as though she -had recognized her incapacity, by conscious plan, to attain this -consummation. - -For she realized that this was consummation. This which she already -had gained, and gained through acts and chances which she could not -have foreseen, was all--indeed, more than all--she could have hoped -to obtain through the vague, delayed ordeals which her fancy had -formed for her. She had nothing more to attempt here in the enemy’s -land than escape and return to the allied lines; she had no right, -indeed, to attempt more; for anything additional which she could -gain would be of such slight value, in comparison with what she now -had, that it could not justify her in heaping hazard upon the risks -which she must run in returning to the allied armies with the -knowledge she possessed. - -There was Gerry Hull, of course. He was in this land of the enemy -somewhere--alive or dead. When she was entering Germany she had -thought of herself as coming, somehow, to find and to aid him. But -what she had gained meant that now she must abandon him. - -She gazed toward the railroad and to the white streak of the road to -Lauengratz, upon which, after a few minutes, a motor again passed; -more horsemen appeared and more specks of walking men. But through -the woods was silence; the axmen, whom she had heard before, began -to fell other trees; and the steadiness of the sound brought Ruth -reassurance. Whatever search was being made below had not yet -disturbed the woodsmen near her. Yet she arose and crept a few -hundred yards farther up the mountainside, and under heavier cover, -before she dropped to the ground again. - -She found herself more relaxed as the rowels of peril, which had -goaded her mercilessly, ceased to incite fresh strength for farther -flight. All her nerves and senses remained alert; but her body was -exhausted and sore. She was hungry, too; and though nothing was -farther from her thought than sleep, nevertheless she suffered the -result not only of the strains of the morning, but also of her -sleeplessness during the night. She was cold, having changed from -her suit to a linen street dress which had been Cynthia Gail’s, and -she was without a hat; so she sought the sun once more and sat back -to a tree and rested. - -If recaptured--she thought of herself as having been captured by von -Forstner--she recognized that she would be shot. Therefore her -recapture with von Forstner’s reports upon her could not make her -fate worse; and in any case she determined to preserve them as proof -to the French--if she ever regained access to the French--that the -information which she bore was authentic. She did up the papers and -the stencils together and secreted them under her clothing. - -She tried to imagine what Adler and Oberst-Lieutenant von -Fallenbosch--who undoubtedly was now saying to Adler a good deal -more than the secretary had dreaded--would expect her to do so that -she could choose the opposite course. The alternatives, obviously, -were effort to reach the Swiss frontier and in some way elude the -border guards or to make for the Alsace front, where the French and -the Americans were fighting. - -This second allured her powerfully; but, to attempt it, meant -leaving this friendly cover of the Black Forest--which would hide -her almost to the Swiss frontier--and crossing west to the Rhine and -across to the Rhine Canal, and almost the whole way across Alsace to -the Vosges Mountains, where the opposing trenches twisted. She knew -that behind the German fighting front she would encounter a military -zone of many miles, much more difficult to penetrate than the -civilian zone bounding the soldier-sentineled barriers at the Swiss -frontier. But, just beyond that zone in Alsace lay American -battalions; above it would be flying American battleplanes. - -Ruth closed her eyes and seemed to see them; one was fighting as she -had seen Gerry Hull fight that morning near Mirevaux. It was he and -he was being shot down! - -She started up, blinking in the sunlight. He had been shot down -again, in truth. This was Germany; and he was in Germany; the enemy -had him--von Forstner’s boasting voice was saying it--dead or a -prisoner. She shuddered and closed her eyes to see, again, Gerry -Hull’s face. She seemed to be looking up at him; he was in -blue-gray--his French uniform. Palms and roses were behind him. They -were in Mrs. Corliss’ conservatory together, their first time alone. - -“You’re not like anyone else here,” he was saying to her. “That’s -why I needed to see you again.... What is it, Cynthia Gail?” A -queer, warm little thrill went through her; she seemed to be still -looking up at him, his arms were about her now; he was carrying her. -They were upon the _Ribot_ and she was telling him that she would -have gone into the sea to get anyone--anyone at all. Now, -“Ruth--Ruth Alden!” he was saying. Her own name; and he liked to -repeat it. “They shan’t!” he was holding her so fiercely. “They -shan’t!” Now he kissed her hand. Her fingers of her other hand -closed gently over the hand he had kissed; so, in the sunlight at -the base of a tree high upon the mountainside above Lauengratz in -the Black Forest of Baden, at last she fell asleep. - -Not soundly nor for extended periods; a score of times she stirred -and started up at sounds made by the breeze or at the passage of -some small forest animal. Once a human footfall aroused her; and she -was amazed to learn how delicate her hearing had been made by alarm -when she discovered how distant the man was. He bore an ax; and -evidently he was a Russian or perhaps a French captive; he passed -upon a path far below without even looking up to where she hid in -the trees. Nevertheless Ruth fled farther about the mountain before -she dared rest again. - -At nightfall she was awake and during the first hours of blackness -she forced her way on in spite of the dismaying difficulties of wood -travel in the dark. She fell repeatedly, even when she ventured upon -a path, or she bruised herself upon boughs and stumbled into -thickets. But she did not give up until the conviction came to her -that she was hopelessly lost. - -At best, she had been proceeding but blunderingly, attempting no -particular course; merely endeavoring to keep to a definite -direction. But now she did not know whether she had worked west of -Lauengratz or had circled it to the east or south. She was cold, -too; and hungry and quite exhausted. Twice she had crossed tiny -brooks--or else the same brook twice--and she had cupped her hands -to drink; thus, with nothing more than the cold mountain water to -restore her, she lay down at last in a little hollow and slept. - -The morning light gave her view over strange valleys with all the -hills and mountain tops in new configuration. She stood up, stiff, -and bruised, and weak; taking her direction from the sun, she -started west, encountering cleared ground soon and a well-traveled -road, which she dared not cross in the daylight. So she followed it -north until a meeting road, with its cleared ground, halted her. At -first she determined to wait until dark; but after a few hours of -frightened waiting she risked the crossing in daylight and fled into -the farther woods unseen. Again that afternoon she came into the -open to cross a north and south road. Early in the evening she -crossed a railroad, which she believed to be the road from Freiburg -to Karlsruhe. - -She had seen many men, women, and children that day, as upon the -previous day, passing on the roads, or busy about houses, or working -in fields, or in the woodlands. Most of the people were Germans; but -many, undoubtedly, were military prisoners or deported civilians. -She had avoided all alike, not daring to approach any house or any -person, though now she had been forty-eight hours without food -except for the “stimulant” and the accompanying biscuit which Adler -had sent her. - -That night, however, she found the shelter of a shed where was straw -and at least a little more warmth than under the trees. Refuge there -involved more risk, she knew; but she had reached almost the end of -her strength; and, lying in the straw and covering herself with it, -she slept dreamlessly at first, and then to reassuring, pleasant -dreams. She was in a château--one of those white-gray, beautiful, -undamaged buildings which she had seen far behind the battle lines -in France; she was lying in a beautiful, soft bed, much like that -which had been hers at Mrs. Mayhew’s apartment upon the Avenue -Kléber. Then all shifted to a great hospital ward, like that in -which she had visited Charles Gail; but she was in the same -beautiful bed and an attendant--a man--had come to take her pulse. - -She stirred, it had become so real; she could feel gentle, but firm, -and very real fingers upon her wrist. Now a man’s voice spoke, in -French and soothingly. “It is well, Mademoiselle, I do not mean harm -to you. I am only Antoine Fayal, a Frenchman from Amagne in the -department of Ardennes, Mademoiselle. I----” - -Opening her eyes, Ruth saw a thin, hollow-cheeked, dark-haired man -of middle age in the rags of blouse and trousers which had been, -once, a French peasant’s attire. He quickly withdrew his hand, which -had been upon Ruth’s wrist; and his bloodless lips smiled -respectfully and reassuringly. - -“I am French, Mademoiselle,” he begged in a whisper. “Believe me! -One of the deported; a prisoner. My duty here, a woodsman! Happening -by here, Mademoiselle, I discovered you; but I alone! No one else. -You will pardon; but you were so white; you barely breathed. I did -not believe you dead, Mademoiselle; but faint, perhaps. So I sought -to ascertain!” - -“I thank you!” Ruth whispered back, feeling for her papers. “Where -are we?” - -“This is part of the estate of Graf von Weddingen, Mademoiselle. We -are very close to the Rhine. You are----” he coughed and altered his -question before completing it. “It may be in my power to aid you, -Mademoiselle?” - -“I am an American,” Ruth said. - -“Yes, Mademoiselle.” - -“I have been trying to reach Alsace and the French and American -lines.” - -“You have done well so far, Mademoiselle,” Fayal said respectfully. - -“How do you know?” - -“I know that at noon yesterday, Mademoiselle, you were twenty -kilometers away. The whole countryside has been warned to find you; -but you have come these twenty kilometers in spite of them.” - -He coughed and checked himself, a little guiltily, as she startled. -“That is, Mademoiselle, if you are that American lady who had -accompanied Hauptmann von Forstner.” - -“I am that one,” Ruth admitted. - -“Then, Mademoiselle, come immediately with me! No moment is to be -lost!” - -He went to the door of the shed and gazed cautiously about. Ruth -arose and began brushing the straw from herself; sleep had restored -her nerves, but not her strength, she found. She swayed when she -stepped. She was completely at the mercy of this man, as she must -have been in the power of whoever found her. But she did not -distrust Fayal. His emaciation, his cough, and, more than those, his -manner--the manner of a man who had been suffering indignities -without letting himself become servile; and together with that, his -concern and respect for a woman--seemed to Ruth beyond counterfeit. - -“You require food, of course, Mademoiselle!” Fayal exclaimed in -dismay. “And I have none!” - -“I can follow you,” Ruth assured. - -“Then now, Mademoiselle!” - -He stepped from the shed, and, motioning to her to imitate him, he -slipped into the trees to the right. Evidently he considered her -danger great; the peril to him, if caught aiding one who was -attempting escape, must be as positive as her own; but the Frenchman -was disregardful of that. He gained a gully, and, returning, aided -her in descending. Someone approached. “Lie flat!” Fayal whispered. -She obeyed; and, while she lay, she heard German voices shouting and -the sounds of search. - -When they had moved far away, Fayal led her to a dugout entrance, -concealed by brush and with last year’s leaves scattered before it. - -“Keep well back in there, Mademoiselle; until I come again for you!” - -She went into a low and dark but fairly dry cavern under the -hillside. She heard Fayal tossing about leaves to hide the entrance -as before. Soon he was gone. - -Many times during the day Ruth heard people passing through the -woods. Once she was sure that a group of men were engaged in a -search; but they failed to find the cavern. Only late in the -afternoon someone, who stepped quickly and lightly--a child or a -slight, active woman--ran close past the brush before the entrance, -and, without halting, tossed a bundle into the bush. - -Ruth had been obeying Fayal’s injunction to stay well back in the -cavern; now, venturing to the bush, she found a paper package, -within which was a chunk of blackish, hard bread and two boiled -turnips. She thought, as she saw this food, that it had been Fayal’s -perhaps; at least, it had been the ration of some prisoner or -deported captive as ill fed, probably, as he. But she was ravenous; -this had been given her, however little it could have been spared by -the donor. She ate it all and was stronger. - -Fayal did not return that day; but during the night someone visited -the cavern, for, when morning came, she found food. - -At night Fayal returned, and when he guided her out of the woods -across fields and farms, she realized how essential were the -precautions he had enjoined. He guided her half the night, and -brought her to another concealment, where another French refugee -took her in charge. - -She had become a passenger, she found, upon one of the “underground -railways” in operation to conduct escaped prisoners across the -frontiers; Fayal, having brought her safely over his section, said -his adieu. - -“The next German attack is to come upon the French on the front -between Reims and Soissons, remember, Fayal,” Ruth enjoined upon the -man when parting with him. “If I fail to get through, you must try -to send the word.” - -“Yes, Mademoiselle. But you must not fail. Good fortune, -Mademoiselle, adieu!” - -“Good fortune, Fayal; a thousand thanks again; and--adieu!” - -Her new conductor led her on a few more miles that night; she laid -up during the day; at night proceeded under a new guide. - -So she passed on from hiding place to hiding place, sometimes lying -for days at a time--terrible, torturing delays, during which she -dreamed of the Germans advancing over all that Reims-Soissons front -and sweeping over the French armies as they had overwhelmed the -British in Picardy. And she--she, if she might go on, could prevent -them! Many times during the endless hours she lay alone waiting for -her guide who did not appear, she crept out from her concealment, -determined to force on; but always she learned the futility of -attempting to proceed alone. - -She was following her sixth guide after Fayal, and it was upon the -eleventh evening after her escape from Lauengratz, when suddenly she -heard a rough challenge; German soldiers appeared across the path; -others leaped up from the right and left; yet others were behind. - -Her guide instantly recognized that he had led her into a trap; and -he fought, wildly, to try to save her. She fought, too. But they -bayoneted him, and, upon their bayonets, they bore him back upon -her. A soldier seized her; overpowered her, brutally, and she -struggled no longer with hope to fight free, but only to destroy the -papers which she still carried. So they pinioned her arms; they half -stripped her in searching her; they took her papers, and leaving her -guide dead upon the ground, they hurried her with them to their -commandant. - -This officer instantly suspected her identity. For, in spite of her -eleven nights of flight, she was not yet seventy miles from -Lauengratz. Disposition of her evidently had been predetermined, -pending her recapture; for the officer, after examining her again, -dispatched her to a railroad train, under guard. They put her in -manacles and, boarding a north-bound train, they took her to a town -the name of which she could not learn. From the station they marched -her to what appeared to be an old castle, where they at once -confined her, alone, in a stone-walled cell. - -It possessed a solitary, narrow slit of a window, high up under the -ceiling; it boasted for furniture a cot, a chair and bowls. The -Germans relieved her of the manacles when they led her into this -cell. Not long after she was left alone, light streaked in through -the slit of a window; a hand, opening a panel in her door, thrust in -a dipper of soup and a chunk of bread. - -Ruth received the food, consumed it, and sank down upon her pallet. -Her great venture thus had come to an end; her life was forfeit; and -by all that she had dared and done, she had accomplished--nothing. - -No; more than nothing. She had caused the arrest of De Trevenac and -those taken with him; she had aided at least a little in the -frightful labors of the retreat from Mirevaux. She had saved the -life of Gerry Hull! - -She never before had permitted herself to think that she had saved -Gerry; without her he might have been able to free himself from -under his machine. But now she let herself believe. - -This gave her a share in the battles which he had fought over the -advancing enemy lines. Yes; she had accomplished more than nothing. -Yet how much less than she had dreamed! And all of her dream--or -most of it--might actually have come true! She had possessed the -German plan; indeed, she still possessed the knowledge of the front -of the next assault and something of the detail of the enemy -operations! She had committed it, verbally, to Fayal and to others -of her guides; so it was possible that it might yet reach the allied -lines. But she realized that, even though Fayal or one of the others -sent the word through, it must completely lack authority; it must -reach the French as merely a rumor--a trick of the enemy, perhaps; -it could not be heeded. - -She sat up with muscles all through her tugging taut. It seemed that -with her frantic strength, with her bare hands she must rend those -stones and escape, not to save herself, but to return to the allied -lines and tell them what she knew. But the coldness of the stones, -when she touched them, shocked her to realizations. - -Tomorrow--or perhaps even today--the enemy might take her out and -kill her. And while death--her individual, personal -annihilation--had become a matter of amazingly small account, yet -the recognition that with death must come withdrawal, perhaps, even -from knowledge of how the battle was going upon that line where the -fate of all the world was at stake, where Britons and French fought -as she had seen them fight, and where, at last, America was -arriving--that crushed her down to her pallet and with despair quite -overwhelmed her. - -So she set herself to thinking of Gerry. He was alive, perhaps; a -prisoner, therefore, and to be returned some day when the war was -over, to marry Lady Agnes, while she.... Ruth did not shudder when -she thought of herself dead. - -Perhaps Gerry was dead; then she would be going at once to join him. -And if they merely took her out and shot her today, or tomorrow, or -some day soon, without doing anything more to her than that, she -might find Gerry and rejoin him, much as she had been when he had -known her and--yes--liked her. Without having suffered indignity, -that was. These cold stones seemed at least to assure her of this. -So she lay and thought of him while the slit of light crept slowly -from left to right as the sun swung to the west and she listened for -the step of those who would come to her cell. - - - - -CHAPTER XX: AN OFFICERS’ PRISON - - -Gerry, when shot down over the German lines, had succeeded in making -that “some sort of landing” which his comrades had reported. - -There was an axiom, taught in the training camps to give confidence -to cadets, which said that when a pilot once gets his wheels -squarely on the ground, he will not be killed, though his machine -may be badly smashed. Gerry, in his landing, had tested this axiom -to its utmost; for he had had sufficient control of his ship, at the -last, to put his wheels square to the ground; and though his machine -was wholly wrecked, he was not killed. He was painfully shaken and -battered; but so excellently was his ship planned to protect the -pilot in a “crash,” that he was not even seriously injured. Indeed, -after the German soldiers dragged him out he was able to stand--and -was quite able, so the German intelligence officers decided, to -undergo an ordeal intended to make him divulge information. - -This ordeal failed, as it failed with all brave men taken prisoners; -and Gerry was given escort out of the zone of the armies and put -upon a train for a German prison camp. With him were an American -infantry lieutenant and two French officers. - -The Germans held, at that time, nearly two million prisoners of war, -of which upwards of twenty thousand were officers; the men and -non-commissioned officers--as Gerry had heard--were distributed in -more than a hundred great camps, while for the officers there were -about fifty prisons scattered all over the German states. These -varied in character from sanatoria, newly erected high-school -buildings, hotels, and vacated factories, to ancient brick and stone -fortresses housing prisoners in their dark, damp casemates. The -_offizier-gefangenenlager_ to which Gerry and his three companions -finally were taken proved to be one of the old fortress castles just -east of the Rhine, in the grand duchy of Hesse; its name was -Villinstein, and it housed at that time about five hundred officers -and officers’ servants. There Gerry and his three companions were -welcomed, not alone for themselves, but for the news which they -brought with them; and Gerry, being an aviator, found himself -particularly welcome. - -“For a flyin’ man we’ve been a-waitin’, Gerry, dear,” Captain -O’Malley--formerly of the Irish Fusiliers--whispered and all but -chanted into Gerry’s ear soon after they became acquainted. All -allied officer prisoners--as German official reports frequently -complained--planned an escape; but some schemed more than others. -And the heart, if not the soul, of the schemes of escape from -Villinstein was the black-haired, dark-eyed, light-hearted Kerry man -of twenty-four summers, who was back in the casemates with his -fellows again after six weeks of “the solitary” in a dungeon as -punishment for his last effort for liberty. - -“’Tis this way,” O’Malley initiated Gerry immediately into the order -of those bound to break for freedom. They were standing alone at a -corner of the castle, which gave view over the ground to the east. -“Out there you see the first wire--’tis often charged with -electricity at night--to catch us if we leap over these walls. -Beyond you see the second entanglement of the same persuasion; after -that--nothing at all! Do you see?” - -Gerry admitted vision, as though the walls below them, the guards -and the two wire barriers were merest trifles. - -“We’ve been beyond many times,” the Irishman motioned, unfolding his -theory of immateriality of the apparent obstacles. “Many times.” - -“How?” Gerry inquired. - -“By burrow, mostly. Now and then in other ways; but by tunnel is -most certain. ’Tis harmless amusement for us, the enemy think; so -they let us dig, though they know we’re doing it, till we’re ready -to run out. Then they halt us and claim the reward. ’Tis arranged -so.” - -Gerry nodded. He had heard long before, from escaped prisoners, that -at certain camps the Germans made little attempt to prevent -tunneling until the burrows were almost completed. The German system -of rewards, by some peculiar psychology of the command, gave more -credit to guards for “detecting” an escape than at first preventing -it. - -“This time ’twill be different!” O’Malley promised, smacking his -lips. - -“Why?” - -“They don’t know where we’re burrowing.” - -“How many times before haven’t they known?” Gerry asked cautiously. - -“Many times,” O’Malley admitted. “But this time they don’t. We’re -working at two they know about, of course; but the third--” he -checked himself and looked about cautiously, then spoke more closely -to Gerry’s ear. “’Tis well planned now. Ye’ve seen the tennis court -in the courtyard?” - -“Certainly,” Gerry said. - -“Did ye note the fine new grandstand we built about it?” - -He referred, obviously, to the tiers of steps, or seats, to -accommodate the spectators at the match games for the championship -of the camp which then were being played. - -“Under the stands where they run up against the side of the canteen -building,” O’Malley confided, “is a fine, empty space for hiding -dirt which the Huns don’t yet inspect--that not yet being listed for -inspection, nothing yet having happened beneath. So there we’re -digging the true tunnel--besides the two that everyone knows about. -Now that you’re here, we’ll use it. We’ve been only awaiting--while -wishing nobody any hard luck--for a flying man. For we’ve been -beyond the wire many times,” the Irishman repeated. “But now with -you here, we’ll go farther.” And he gazed away to the east, where -airplanes were circling in the clear sky. - -They had risen from an airdrome about two miles distant from -Villinstein, Gerry learned, where the Germans were training cadet -flyers. O’Malley had managed to learn something of the arrangement -of the airdrome and had observed the habits of the cadets; he had a -wonderful plan by which the party of prisoners, who should use the -secret tunnel to get beyond the wire, should surprise the guards at -the flying field and capture an airplane. Thus Gerry began his -prison life with a plot for escape. - -At times he took his turn digging in the tunnel; at times he was one -of the crowd of spectators upon the stand about the tennis court, -who stamped and applauded loudly whenever the men working below -signaled for a little noise to mask their more audible activities; -at times he himself took part in the play. - -Every few days groups of prisoners were permitted to take a tramp in -the neighborhood under the escort of a couple of German officers. To -obtain this privilege, each prisoner was required to give his parole -not to attempt to escape while on these expeditions; but as the -parole bound no one after the return to the fortress, the prisoners -gave it. Gerry in this way obtained a good view of the surroundings -of Villinstein; and in one way or another he and the other officers -picked up a good deal of news which otherwise would not have reached -the prison. - -It was in this manner that word reached the officer prisoners at -Villinstein that an American girl, who had entered Germany by way of -Switzerland in an attempt to obtain military information, had been -captured and had been taken to the _schloss_ belonging to von -Fallenbosch, near Mannheim, fifty miles away. It was not known -whether she had been executed or whether she still was living; -indeed, it was not known whether she had been tried yet; or whether -she was to be tried; and her identity--except that she was an -American girl--also was a mystery. That is, it was unknown to the -prisoner who brought in the news and to the others to whom he told -it; but it was not a mystery to Gerry. He knew that the girl was -Ruth Alden--that she had gone on with her plan and been caught. - -And the knowledge imbued him with furious dismay. He blamed himself -as the cause of her being at the mercy of the enemy. He had seen no -way past the dilemma which had confronted him in regard to her, -except to make a negative report in regard to Ruth which--he had -hoped--would both keep her free from trouble with the French -authorities and prevent her gaining permission to leave France for -Switzerland. He had learned, too late, that while he had -accomplished the former end, he had failed in the latter. She had -been allowed to proceed to Switzerland; then he was shot down and -captured. - -It had been impossible, therefore, for him to seek further -information of her fate; but he had her in his mind almost -constantly. When he was by himself, in such isolation as Villinstein -afforded, his thoughts dwelt upon her. He liked to review, half -dreamily as he sat in a corner of a casemate with a book, all his -hours with her and recall--or imagine--how she looked that first -time she had spoken to him. The days upon the _Ribot_ had become, -marvelously, days with her. Quite without his will--and certainly -without his conscious intention--Agnes had less and less place in -his recollections of the voyage. She was always there, of course; -but his thought and his feelings did not of themselves restore to -him hours with her. It was the same when he was talking over -personal and home affairs with the men with whom he became best -acquainted--with O’Malley and a Canadian captain named Lownes; when -the Irishman spoke of the girl waiting for him and when Lownes--who -was married--told of his wife, Gerry mentioned Ruth; and--yes--he -boasted a bit of her. - -“I thought,” O’Malley said to him later, “that you were engaged to -an English girl, the daughter of an earl or such.” - -Gerry colored a little. “We’ve been good friends; that’s all, -Michael; never more than that. When we happened to go to America on -the same boat, our papers over there tried to make more of it; and -some of their stuff reached this side.” - -This was true enough; but it left out of account the fact that, not -long ago, Gerry had hoped himself some day to make “more of it”; -and, later, he had not tried. Now, as he thought back he knew that -Agnes had never loved him; and he had not loved her. This strange -girl whom he had known at first as Cynthia, and then as Ruth Alden, -had stirred in him not only doubts of the ideas by which he had -lived; she had roused him to requirements of friendship--of love, -let him admit it now--which he had not felt before. Their ride -together away from Mirevaux, when he sat almost helpless and swaying -at her side after she had saved his life, became to him the day of -discovery of her and of himself. He could see her so clearly as her -eyes blurred with tears when she told him about “1583;” and he knew -that then he loved her. Their supper together at Compiègne became to -him the happiest hour of his life. He had felt for her more strongly -that evening of their last parting in the _pension_; but then the -shadow of her great venture was over them. - -Everything which happened somehow reminded him of her. When he was -out of the prison during the walks on parole and he passed groups of -German civilians and overheard their remarks about America, he -thought of her. The Germans were perfectly able to understand why -France fought, and why England fought, and why Russia had fought; -but why had America come in? Why was America making her tremendous -effort? What was she to gain? Nothing--nothing material, that was. -The enemy simply could not understand it except by imputing to -America motives and aims which Gerry knew were not true. Thus from -experience with the enemy he was beginning to appreciate that -feeling which Ruth had possessed and tried to explain to -him--feeling of the true nobility of his country. So, as he went on -his walks in Germany, he was proud that his uniform marked him as an -American. Prouder--yes, prouder than he could have been under any -other coat! - -He had intended to tell her so; but now she was taken and in the -hands of the Germans! They would execute her; perhaps already they -had! From such terrors there was no relief but work--work in the -tunnel, by which he must escape, and then save her, or die trying. - -A little more news arrived; the American girl was believed to be yet -alive; that was four days ago. - -“We must work faster,” O’Malley enjoined after hearing this; and -Gerry, who had not yet said anything about his private fears, -learned that others in the camp also planned to rescue the American -girl under sentence at the _schloss_. The camp--which in six months -had not succeeded in getting one of their own number free--swore now -to save the prisoner of von Fallenbosch. Such was the spirit of the -_offizier-gefangenenlager_ of Villinstein. - -So Gerry told O’Malley and Lownes about Ruth Alden; and together -they laid their plans. Two days later the Irishman grasped Gerry’s -arm tightly. - -“We wait, bye, only for a moon.” - -“You mean the bore’s finished?” - -“As near as may be till the night of use. You’ve the almanac; when -will be the moon big enough to give you light to fly?” - -“Fri--no, Thursday, Mike?” - -“You’ll be certain, bye; you’ll not spoil all by impulsiveness.” - -“Thursday will be all right, if it’s clear, Mike.” - -“Then pray, bye, for a dark evening.” - -“And a clear night!” - -“Aye; a clear night--to find Mannheim!” - -And Thursday evening came, overclouded, yet with a moon behind the -clouds which shone bright and clear for minutes at a time, then, -obscured, left all the land in blackness. - -The digging parties of the last week had placed in the tunnel enough -food from the officers’ packages, which arrived regularly through -Switzerland, to supply three days’ rations for ten men; so that -night the ten descended into the tunnel. They recognized it was -possible that the guards knew about the tunnel and had permitted -them to enter it that night only to catch them at the other end. The -test would come when taps was sounded and the German officer of the -day, making his rounds of the barracks, would find ten men missing -roll call. - -Gerry then was lying on his face in the tunnel and passing back dirt -which those in front of him excavated. Only by counting the drumming -of his heart could he estimate the minutes passing, but he knew that -the delay in the tunnel was longer than O’Malley had planned. - -“Taps! Taps!” came the word from Lownes, at the prison end of the -burrow, who had heard the German bugle blow. From forward, where -O’Malley was digging, dirt kept coming back, and still more dirt. -For the diggers had not dared to run the bore to the surface, nor, -indeed, near enough to the surface so that a sentinel, treading -above, would break through. At best, therefore, O’Malley, who was -finishing the bore, had a fair amount left to do. - -“The alarm! The alarm!” - -Gerry, gasping in the stifling air of the burrow, could not hear the -bugle or the bells; the warning was passed to him by the man at his -heels; and Gerry passed the alarm on to the heels at his head. The -Germans knew now that men were missing; the camp guards were out, -the police dogs let loose; sentinels would fire, without challenge, -at anyone sighted outside of the barracks. - -But from past the heels at Gerry’s head a fresh, cool current of air -was moving. He drew deep breaths, and as the heels crawled from him -he thrust upon his elbows and crept after. The bore was open; -O’Malley was out upon the ground. The heels ahead of Gerry altered -to a hand, which reached into the burrow, caught Gerry’s arm, and -dragged him out. Kneeling at the edge of the hole, he thrust his arm -down, caught someone, and pulled him out. - -O’Malley was gone; the man whose hand had helped Gerry also had -vanished. Gerry made no attempt to find or follow them as he -crouched and ran; the plan was that all would scatter immediately. -Machine guns were going; searchlights were sweeping the ground. -Gerry fell flat when a beam swung at him, went over and caught some -other poor devil. A field piece upon a platform on the edge of the -camp opened upon the space a hundred yards beyond Gerry and shrapnel -began smashing. - -One good thing about shrapnel Gerry recognized; it spread smoke -which screened the searchlight flares. Another feature was that it -and the machine-gun fire was as hard on the police dogs as upon the -fugitives. But that was like the Germans--when they were -surprised--to let go everything at once. - -Gerry jumped up and fled, taking his chances with the machine-gun -bullets and with the shrapnel which burst all about at random; but -he watched the searchlights and threw himself down when they -threatened. - -O’Malley had planned a surprise attack in force--if you can call ten -unarmed men a force when attacking a German flying field. But Gerry -knew that already the ten must be cut in two. Some of them probably -never got out of the tunnel; the machine guns or the shrapnel surely -must have accounted for one or two. He heard dogs give tongue as -they were taught to do when they had caught prisoners. - -The Irishman’s plan, wild enough at best, had become hopeless. Gerry -had offered no other plan, because he had failed to form anything -less mad. But now as he lay on the ground, while a searchlight -streamed steadily above him, a plan offered itself. - -This came from the clouds and from the moon shining through when, as -now, the clouds split and parted--from the moon whose rising and -shining full O’Malley and he had awaited. They had waited for the -moon to furnish them light for their night flight in a German -airplane after they got the machine. They had not thought of the -moon as bringing them a “ship.” But now, above the rattle of the -machine guns and between the smashings of the shrapnel, Gerry heard -motors in the air and he knew that night-flying Hun-birds were up. -For their pilots, too, had been waiting for the moon for practice. - -It is all very well to talk about night flying in the dark; but -Gerry knew how difficult--almost impossible--is flight in actual -darkness. When he had been in training for night flying, years ago -at his French training field, he had waited so many weeks for the -moon that now he jeered at himself, lying flat under the searchlight -beam, for a fool not to have thought of German flyers being up -tonight. - -They were up--six or eight of them at least. He could see their -signal lights when he could not hear their motors. They had come -overhead when the lights at the prison blazed out and the guns got -going. The machine guns and the shrapnel fire ceased; only the -searchlights glared out over the fields beyond the prison wire. The -moon went under the clouds again. Gerry knew he could dodge the -searchlights; but now he made no attempt whatever to flee. Instead, -he crept back toward the prison, and between the beams of lights, -which reached away to the south, almost parallel, and which swung -back and forth slightly. - -Except for those lights, all was black now; and Gerry knew how those -searchlight beams must tempt some German cadet making his first -night flight under the clouds. Gerry had been a cadet flying at -night in the darkness with clouds closing overhead. He knew how -strange and terrifying was the blackness of the ground; how welcome -was any light giving view of a landing place. The airdrome, with its -true landing lights, was two miles to the south; but what was -direction, and what was a difference of two miles to a cadet coming -down through the clouds, and “feeling” in the darkness for the -ground? Gerry himself only a few months before, when caught by -closing clouds, had come down in a field six miles from the one he -sought. Indeed, French airmen flying at night had come down in -German airdromes by mistake, as Germans had come down in French. - -So Gerry lay in the blackness between the searchlight beams, -accusing himself for dullness in not having known. If he had seen an -escape before, and seen these searchlights shooting out over the -fields, he might have realized how they imitated landing lights; but -he had not; and O’Malley--if he lived--would be waiting for him by -the flying field. No, not O’Malley. For the Irishman’s voice -whispered to him gently. O’Malley dragged himself up. - -“Bye, you’re hit, too?” - -“No; I’m all right. You?” - -“’Twas bad planned, all.” The Irishman took blame upon himself for -the catastrophe which had befallen the others. “I doubt whether any -of them----” - -His lips lay to Gerry’s ear; but Gerry turned his head. - -“You can stand and fight a minute, O’Malley?” - -“Arrah! You see them coming?” - -“It’s overhead, O’Malley; listen. One of them’s trying to get down. -Maybe there’s two men in it.” - -“What do you mean I should hear?” - -“The silence,” Gerry said. “One of them just shut off above us.” - -“I’m affecting you, bye,” said O’Malley. “But I know what you mean.” - -The silence to which Gerry referred was only comparative; the motor -was shut off in the German airplane which was trying to “get down”; -but the rush of the volplane kept the airscrew thrashing audibly. -The sound passed a hundred yards overhead; it increased suddenly to -a roar as the pilot opened his throttle; and Gerry knew that in -volplaning down, the cadet had misjudged the ground and had switched -on his engine to give him power to circle about and try for the -landing again. - -The roar returned; throttled down; the airscrew thrashed; -black-crossed wings darted through the beams of a searchlight; the -pilot got his wheels on the ground and his machine was bounding. -Gerry was on his feet and running after it. O’Malley followed. The -airplane rolled slowly through the second pencil of light and, as -the pilot stepped from his seat, Gerry charged him from behind. -Gerry tackled him and knocked him down; Gerry jerked out the -German’s automatic pistol. - -“O’Malley?” Gerry challenged the figure which struggled up. - -“Bye!” - -“There was only one on board. I have him. Take his pistol -ammunition, his helmet, and goggles.” - -“I have them, bye.” - -“Get aboard--in the forward seat pit!” - -Gerry backed to the machine himself, holding the German covered. The -prisoner dodged back and moved to wreck his machine. Gerry fired and -the German fell. - -Gerry jumped into the pilot’s pit; the engine and the airscrew the -German had left just turning over; Gerry opened wide, and felt his -wheels rolling; an exultation of relief and triumph, rather than -definite sense, told him that he was flying. Little lights set over -dials before him informed of the accustomed details by strange -scales and meters--his speed, his height, his direction of flight, -and the revolutions his engine was making. - -He gazed below at the ground lights from which he had risen; he -turned about. The machine which he had captured, like most training -machines, was big and heavy; its body could be arranged for two -seats or for one. O’Malley had found the other pit; and though the -machine had been balanced for pilot only, the trick of flying with -weight forward was easy for Gerry. - -He switched on the light above the mapboard and found spread before -him a large detail map of the immediate vicinity. Below was a chart -of smaller scale for use in case the pilot “flew out” of the first -map and was lost. But Gerry was satisfied with the one already in -position. It gave him Mannheim and--he bent closer to see clearly -upon the vibrating surface--the grounds and wood von Fallenbosch and -also the speck of the _schloss_. - -The feeling of boundless power, limitless recklessness to dare and -do, which flight had first brought to him as a cadet years before, -reclaimed him. Flight, that miraculous endowment, was his again. He -passed to O’Malley the German pilot’s hood; he protected his own -eyes with the goggles, and, watching the ground to estimate the wind -drift, he set his course by compass for Mannheim. What he was to do -there he did not know; and he no longer attempted to form any plan. -The event--inevitable and yet unforseeable--which had brought him -this ship had taught him tonight to cease to plan. He was flying, -and content to let fate guide him. Somehow--he had no idea at all of -how--but somehow this night he would find Ruth Alden and take her -with him. Destiny--the confidence in the guidance of fate which -comes to every soldier and, more than to any other, to the flying -fighter of the sky--set him secure and happy in the certainty of -this. - -He had climbed above the clouds and was flying smoothly and serenely -in the silver moonlight. He was flying solitarily, too; for if alarm -had spread upon the ground to tell that escaped prisoners had taken -a German machine, it had not yet communicated itself to a pilot in -position to pursue. Behind him lay only the moonlight and the stars; -below, the sheen of cloud tops, unearthly, divine; the sheen split -and gaped in great chasms, through which the moonlight slanted down, -lighting great spots of darkness separated by the glinting path of -the Rhine. The river made his piloting simple; he had only to sight -it when the clouds cleared, and he must follow to Mannheim. - -There was a machine gun set in the nacelle before O’Malley, and -Gerry saw the Irishman working with it. O’Malley pulled the trigger, -firing a few trial shots, and turned back to Gerry and grinned. The -noise of the motor and the airscrew prevented Gerry from -communicating any plan to his comrade, even if Gerry had one, but he -knew that, in whatever happened, he could count upon O’Malley’s -complete recklessness and instant wit. - -Lights were below--most of them a bit back from the river. That -would be the city of Worms; a few more miles, and Gerry must decide -what he was going to do. But for the moment the sensation of freedom -and of flight together continued to intoxicate him. The Rhine -wavered away to the east, straightened south; ahead--far -ahead--lights. There was Mannheim. - -But O’Malley, in the forward seat, had turned, and, with an arm, -pointed him forward and above. And far ahead, and higher, Gerry -spied dancing specks which caught the moonbeams--specks set in -regular order across the sky and advancing in formation. An air -squadron flying north! - -Below it mighty crimson flashes leaped from the ground, and through -the clatter of his motor Gerry heard the detonation of tremendous, -thunderous charges. Now black spots of smoke floated before the -flying specks, and from the ground guns spat fiery into -action--German anti-aircraft guns replying to aerial torpedoes -dropped from the sky. - -Others besides the officer prisoners of Villinstein and the German -cadets of the nearby airdrome had waited for the moon that night. -Allied pilots also had waited; and now, with the moon to favor and -guide them, they had come to attack the chemical works and the -munition factories of Mannheim! An allied air raid was on that -night! - - - - -CHAPTER XXI: THE RAID ON THE SCHLOSS - - -Gerry’s feet thrust on the rudder bar, swinging his machine to meet -them, while hot rills ran through his limbs, warming him against the -chill of the night flight above the clouds. He had thought of the -frontier as a hundred and fifty miles away--two hours’ flight at -best in this slow, heavy training “bus”--but here his friends were -bringing it to him. His excitement prevented him from realizing -instantly that to his friends he must appear an enemy--a -black-crossed Hun-bird flying to fight them. - -A covey of German pursuit planes, flushed up from some airdrome near -the raided city, swooped upward in front of Gerry, climbing for the -advantage of altitude before starting their attack upon the raiders. -Gerry could see them clearly--triplane Fokkers mostly, of the -swiftest, best-climbing, and best-armed type. Some of them saw him, -but saw, too, that his machine was German. Probably the pilots -wondered what that old “bus” was doing there, but no one -investigated, while Gerry flew on. - -The clouds had quite cleared below, but the city of Mannheim, -speckled with lights a few minutes before, lay dark except where the -great crimson bursts of the allied torpedoes erupted; where flames -fanned from roofs of burning buildings; where the scintillant points -of searchlights glared into the sky. Rockets streaked above the -black city; shells flared and flaked in the air; and the glory of -battle grasped Gerry. Grasped O’Malley, too. He patted his machine -gun and turned about in his seat, appealing to Gerry. - -Above them the Fokkers and the other machines of the German defense -were diving and engaging the raiders; a light caught the under wings -of a plane and showed Gerry the tricolor circles of the allies. -Before it sparks streaked--the illuminated tracer bullets streaming -from the machine guns; and toward it, beyond it--now through -it--other sparks streaked back. These were the tracer bullets of the -German who was attacking; and Gerry, jerking back his elevator, -tried to climb; but the big, lumbering training “bus” responded only -slowly. - -When he threw up the nose, bringing the forward machine gun to bear, -O’Malley loosed a burst of bullets, though the target German plane -was five hundred yards away. A range of that length was all right -for machine-gun work on the ground, but in the air--with firing gun -and with the target flying--it was sure waste. Gerry bent forward -and pummeled O’Malley’s back to tell him so. But the Irishman did -not turn; while Gerry climbed, the raiders and the Germans dropped, -bringing the battle nearer, and O’Malley had a target now at two -hundred yards from which he would not be withheld. - -The range still shortened, and bullets streaked down past Gerry. He -gazed above and tried to dodge; O’Malley looked up; he saw the -tricolor circle and did not reply. One of their own people, having -sighted the black cross, was coming down upon them, taking them for -German. And at the same instant the far-off Fokker at which O’Malley -had been firing realized that there was something wrong about this -big, slow, black-crossed machine; the German swung upon it, his -machine guns going. Gerry’s engine went dead and he found himself -automatically guiding the “bus” in a volplane which he was keeping -as slow and as “flat” as possible as he glided below the battle and -sought upon the ground for a place to land. - -He examined his altimeter and learned that he was still up four -thousand feet, and with the flat gliding angle of the wide-winged -training biplane, he knew that he had a radius of more than two -miles for the choice of his landing. The battle was still going on -above Mannheim, as the allied bombers had swung back. A machine -flashed into flame and started down, with its pilot evidently -controlling it at first; then too much of the wing fabric was -consumed and it dropped. Other machines, too, were leaving the -battle; some of them seemed to be Germans damaged and withdrawing; -others appeared to be all right--they had just spent their -ammunition, perhaps. One got on the tail of Gerry’s machine, looked -him over, and then dropped past him. - -Gerry was gliding north and west of the city, making for wide, open -spaces shown on the map which he had been studying--the smooth -spaces of the fields of the Schloss von Fallenbosch. Five hundred -yards away through the moonlight, and at almost his same altitude, -he saw another machine gliding, as he was, with engine shut off; the -circle of their volplane swept them toward each other. - -In the forward seat pit of the English machine--for Gerry steered -close enough not only to see the allied insignia but the distinctive -details of the British bombing plane--the man who had been bomber -and machine gunner was lying back with head dropped; and the pilot, -too, had been hit. He seemed to be half fainting, only spurring -himself up for a few seconds at a time to control his glide. - -Gerry stood up as they glided side by side; he hoped that the -Englishman could make out his uniform in the moonlight. He knew it -was little likely that the other could hear his shout, yet he -yelled: “I’m American; follow me!” And dropping back to his seat, -Gerry set himself to selecting the best spot for his landing. -Whether or not the English pilot saw or heard, he followed Gerry -down. The clear moonlight displayed the ground bare and smooth; it -was hard to guess just when to cease dropping and, turning straight -into the wind, give your elevators that last little upturn which -would permit landing on your wheels and rolling; but he did it, and, -turning in his seat as the rolling slowed, he saw the English plane -bounding upon the field; it leaped, threatened to topple, but came -down on its wheels again. Gerry had his hand on O’Malley. Together -they leaped down and ran to where the English biplane had halted. - -The English pilot had regained strength; he had succeeded even in -lifting the body of his bomber out of his machine; and, considering -himself captured, he hastened to remove the top of his fuel tank in -order to set fire to his ship. Gerry observed this and shouted: - -“Don’t do that! We’re escaped prisoners! We’re Irish and American. -Don’t!” - -His voice carried; and the English pilot delayed with his match. If -any German was near, he did not evidence his presence. If any of the -enemy flyers had noticed the descent of the English biplane, -probably they had seen the black-crossed machine following it down. -So Gerry and the English pilot stood undisturbed, estimating each -other in the moonlight. A machine-gun bullet had grazed the -Englishman’s head; but he was fast recovering from the shock. Gerry -adjusted a first-aid bandage to stay the blood. - -“Your ship’s all right?” Gerry asked. - -“Look at it.” - -“Looks all right; and bombs!” Gerry cried out, discovering a pair of -bombs still hanging in the racks. “You came down with bombs on!” - -“I was gone--part the time,” the Englishman explained. “Thought I’d -released ’em.” - -Gerry was not finding fault. Bombs he had; and, to take the place of -the German training machine, here was a ship with engine undamaged, -and which could fly again, and quite capable--after its bombs were -used--of bearing three men and a girl. Wisely had Gerry determined -that night not to try to guide fate. Events unforeseeable again had -him in their grasp. He gazed half a mile away where the gray walls -of the _schloss_ shimmered in the moonlight. - -“There’s a girl in there,” he said to the English pilot. “An -American girl we’re going to have out. Will you help us?” - -“How?” - -“Lay those last two eggs close to the castle,” Gerry motioned to the -pair of bombs in the rack. “That will drive ’em all to the cellars; -then keep circling above ’em, as if to lay more eggs to keep ’em -there. O’Malley and I’ll rush the castle.” - -“You two alone?” the Englishman asked. - -“Alone?” Gerry laughed. “Lay your eggs, old hawk! Lay your eggs; and -two’s a crowd for that castle tonight! The only danger’s getting -lost in the halls! But in case someone shows, lend us your -pistol--we have one. Then lay your eggs--close but not on; and keep -flying above ten minutes more!” - -The occupants of the Schloss von Fallenbosch all had been aroused -many minutes earlier by the burst of the first bombs in the city. -The detonations, followed immediately by the alarm and by the sound -of the anti-aircraft guns replying, had sent the citizens of -Mannheim scurrying to their cellars. The allied raiders never -attacked intentionally the dwelling places of the city; their -objectives were solely the chemical and munition works; but the -German population--knowing how their own flyers bombed open cities -indiscriminately--always expected similar assaults upon themselves. -Moreover, they well knew the difficulties of identifying objectives -from high in the air and the greater difficulty of confining attack -to a limited area; then there were the machine-gun bullets from the -aerial battle and the bits of shrapnel showering back upon the city. - -But the _schloss_ heretofore had been quite removed from attack; it -was far enough from the city to be in small danger from the falling -shells of the high angle guns. So Oberst-Lieutenant von Fallenbosch -and his aids, his wife and his servants, when roused merely went to -their windows and watched the sky curiously and without idea of -personal danger. If they thought at all about the prisoner confined -in the cell in the old wing of the _schloss_ it was to consider her -quite securely held; she, too, was roused, undoubtedly, and -listening to the sounds which told that pilots from the allied -forces were fighting within a mile or two. But what could she hope -from them? - -Ruth, indeed, was aroused. This night was the first since she had -been taken, upon which the allies had attacked at Mannheim; but she -had recognized the distinctive sounds--distant but tremendous--which -told of a raid. Her window was open but for its bars, and its height -in the wall, instead of interfering, facilitated inspection of the -sky. - -It gave her view over only a limited quadrilateral, of course, but -every few seconds something happened in that space--shells burst, or -a searchlight swept across, or a rocket flared--more than enough to -make her sure that a real attack was on. Once she had a glimpse of -an airplane upon which a searchlight glared and about which shrapnel -burst; that meant she had seen a French, or English, or an American -machine! - -To her, who was about to die, the sight was enormously exciting. Not -that it brought her shadow of hope for herself. For the first five -days following her capture she had been kept shut up in her cell, -seeing only the man who brought her food and refused any right of -access to anyone else. - -At the end of the five days she had been led before a military court -of three men--von Fallenbosch and two other officers--who accused, -tried, and sentenced her without permitting her any semblance of -defense; she was led back and locked up again awaiting the day for -the execution of the death penalty, which had been left to the -discretion or the whim of Oberst-Lieutenant von Fallenbosch. - -Her end might come, therefore, upon any day, or upon any hour, and -without warning; it might not come for weeks or months; her -execution might not, indeed, occur at all. But a more terrible -suspense of sentence scarcely could be devised. Its purpose -ostensibly was to make her disclose facts which the Germans believed -that she knew. Of course they had held inquisition of her -immediately upon capture and several times since, but without -satisfactory result; so they kept her locked up. For reading matter -she was supplied with German newspapers. - -These proclaimed with constantly increasing boastfulness the -complete triumph of the German arms. Everywhere the Germans had -attacked, the allies had crumpled, fleeing in disorder, leaving guns -by the hundred, prisoners by the tens of thousands. One more stroke -and all would be over! Prince Ruprecht would be on the channel; the -Crown Prince would be in Paris! - -Ruth had seen German newspapers before and she had known of their -blatant distortions of truth, but she had never seen anything like -the vaunts of those days. These must have, she feared, much -foundation in fact. Visions of catastrophe to the British Fifth -Army, of the rout from the Hindenburg line almost to Amiens, and the -terrors of the retreat haunted her in her solitary days. Was it -possible that the English were completely crushed and that the -French were helpless? Possible that the American army, which now was -admitted to have arrived in some force, had proved so utterly unfit -for European warfare that the allies dared not send it into the -battle line? - -The few words spoken to her by the man who attended her boasted that -such were the facts. She thought of that front from Soissons to -Reims, where the French lay unaware, perhaps, that upon them was -soon to come the final, overwhelming attack. It must be in the last -stages of preparation, with the hundreds of thousands of reserve -troops secretly concentrated by night marches; with the thousands of -guns and millions of shells secreted and in place for another such -surprise attack to be delivered in some amazing, unforeseen manner -as that assault which two months ago swept over the plains of -Picardy and broke the English line. Perhaps already the attack was -begun; perhaps---- - -Such terrors held her when she lay sleepless or only half drowsing -in the dark; they formed the background for more personal affrights -visualizing her own friends--Hubert and Milicent and Mrs. Mayhew, -French girls whom she had known, and many others. Most particularly -her terror dwelt upon Gerry Hull. She had ventured to inquire of the -Germans regarding his fate; at first they refused information, then -they told her he was dead, next that he was a prisoner; and they -even supplied her with a paragraph from one of their papers boasting -of the fact and making capital of his capture. - -He was in one of their camps, to be treated by the Germans--how? Her -dismay would dwell with him; then, suddenly considering her own -fate, she would sit up, stark, and grasping tight to the sides of -her cot. Her mother and her sisters in Onarga--would they ever know? -Cynthia Gail’s people--what, at last, would they learn? - -A sudden resounding shock, accompanied by a dull rolling sound, -vibrated through the air. A great gun was being tested somewhere -nearby, Ruth thought. No; they would not do that at night. Then it -was an explosion at the chemical works; something had gone wrong. -The shocks and the sounds increased. Also they drew nearer. Now -guns--small, staccato, barking guns--began firing; shells smashed -high in the air. Ruth had dragged her chair below her window and was -standing upon it. Ah! Now she could see the flashes and lights in -the sky; an air raid was on. There within sight--not a mile off--and -fighting, were allied machines! Transcendent exaltation intoxicated -her. - - The bombs bursting in air! - -The stanza of the glorious song of her country sang in her soul with -full understanding of its great feeling. An American prisoner long -ago had written those wonderful words--written them, she remembered, -when lying a captive upon an enemy vessel and when fearing for the -fate of the fort manned by his people. But - - ... the rocket’s red glare, - The bombs bursting in air, - Gave proof through the night - That our flag was still there. - -The burst of these bombs and the flash of these rockets brought the -same leaping glory to Ruth. Not far away in France her flag yet flew -high; her people yet battled, and boldly, defiantly, if they could -send here over German soil such a squadron of the air to this -attack. The bombs and the guns and the rockets continued. - -Sometimes they swept closer; but swiftly they retreated. Now the -motor clatter of a single airplane separated itself and became -louder than all the distant sound. This sound seemed to circle and -swoop over the _schloss_; and--Ruth swayed at the buffet of a -tremendous shock; she caught at the wall to steady herself; but the -wall, too, was quivering. A bomb had burst nearby; near enough, -indeed, to destroy some of the building, for through the tremors of -the detonation she heard the crash of falling walls, the yells and -screams of terror. - -Ruth, steadying herself, realized that this attack might mean her -destruction; but defiant triumph filled her. The airplane which was -circling the _schloss_ was one of the allies; the booming clatter of -its motor as it returned was completing the panic throughout the -_schloss_. A new eruption vibrated the walls, blowing down stones, -timbers; the fury of its detonation battered her. The next might -bury her in the débris of these walls; but she sang--wildly, -tauntingly she sang _The Star-Spangled Banner_. - -The taunt brought no protest. Throughout the _schloss_ now was -silence. She did not believe that all, or, indeed, many of the -occupants of the place had been killed. But she knew that all who -were alive were hiding in the cellars. - -The increasing roar of the airplane motor as the machine swept back -on its orbit of return struck through her pangs of awe at the -possible imminence of her annihilation; but through them she sang, -and this time the motor roar rose to its loudest and diminished -without the shock of another bomb. - -One had been dropped, perhaps, and had failed to explode, or the -pilot had found himself not quite in the position he had desired. -The diminuendo of his motor noise continued only for a few moments, -however; it altered to a crescendo, warning of the approach. But now -other sounds, closer and within the _schloss_, seized Ruth’s -attention. - -Her name echoing in the stone halls--“Ruth! Ruth Alden! Where are -you?” - -Was she mad? Was this a wild fantasy of her excitement, a result of -her long terror? Was this her failure to hold her reason at the -approach of fate? It seemed to be not merely her name, but Gerry’s -voice. She could not answer, but she could sing--sing _The -Star-Spangled Banner_---- - - And the rocket’s red glare, - The bombs bursting in air-- - -Her voice seemed to guide the voices without. “Ruth! Ruth Alden! Are -you all right? We’re here!” - -“_Gave proof through the night_,” she sang, “_that the flag was -still there----_” - -Now voices--unmistakable voices--answered her; and she cried out to -guide them. Gerry called to her, his voice wondrous with triumph and -joy. He was there at the door of her cell; another man was with him; -a friend. They were working together with a bar to burst the lock; -the friend laughed loudly and was not afraid. Gerry did not laugh; -he spoke to her again and again, asking about her. She was well? She -was unhurt? - -[Illustration: Gerry was there at the door of her cell; another man -was with him; a friend] - -Now they had the lock broken; the door open. Gerry seized her as she -came out; he kissed her; he picked her up and started to carry her, -while she cried to him that she was strong and could walk; could -run; could do anything now. Anything! - -The roar of the airplane continued overhead; and Ruth now knew the -trick. It was keeping the Germans below while Gerry and his -companion went through the _schloss_. Ruth did not yet have complete -comprehension of the event; she supposed that Gerry must have -escaped from Germany long before; that he had rejoined his squadron -and had come from the allied lines with the raiders that night. - -Now they were out of the _schloss_ and Gerry was leading her over -soft ground--a field brightly lit by the moon. - -“Gerry, I’ve their plan!” Ruth cried to him. “On the front between -Soissons and Reims; their next attack! I know it....” - -He no longer was leading her. He lifted her and bundled her against -him, quite as he had done once so long before. An airplane was -approaching; she could hear the loud crescendo of its motor; -suddenly it ceased and she heard only the whir of the airscrew of a -machine about to land. - -Gerry was speaking to her, but for some reason she could not -understand what he was saying; she could hear his words, but they -were separate sort of words without meaning. He and Mike were -lifting her now and lowering her feet first into a pit--the seat pit -of an airplane. Mike stepped down into the pit with her and -supported her there. Gerry was gone from her now, but not far away. -He was in the pilot’s pit, or just behind it, with the pilot in -front of him. The motor was roaring again; the machine was moving; -it was rising. She was flying! - -Far--far below, when she looked back, she saw a strange sheen, which -was the moonlight on the ground, with a twisting, brighter strip -dividing it. - -“That,” she tried to say to the man holding her in his lap, “that’s -the Rhine?” - -He tried very hard to hear her, and she supposed that the same thing -must be the matter with him as was the trouble with her when Gerry -spoke to her on the ground. Only slowly she realized that she could -not even hear her own voice for the noise of the motor. - -She looked back to the other pit and saw Gerry’s face; he waved at -her and she waved back; then she sank upon the shoulder of the man -holding her, and she lost consciousness. - -Many times while that English bombing biplane--weighted now by three -men and a girl instead of by two men and bombs--made the journey to -the allied lines, Ruth stirred to semi-wakefulness. The swaying and -the rising and the falling of the airplane as it rode the currents -of the air made it seem to Ruth that she was upon a ship at -sea--upon the _Ribot_. At other times the motion seemed merely the -buoyancy following the sinking of sensations in a dream. Afterwards -she remembered sitting up, wide-eyed and collected in mind, and -gazing down upon the moonlit ground; but at the time these occasions -gave no reaction. - -She remembered that Gerry waved to her many times--every time she -turned. Complete consciousness returned to her, however, only when -she found herself no longer rising, and sinking, or swaying to right -and left, with all sound overwhelmed by motor noises. She was upon a -cot then; it was steady, and soft, and marvelously comfortable; and -extremely kind people were caring for her--one of them an American -girl. - -Mrs. Mayhew was there, and George Byrne, and others, who identified -her. Also, of course, there was Gerry. It was he who introduced to -her two strange officers--one French and one American--and it was -Gerry who said: “These are officers of our intelligence division, -Ruth. Tell them what you can; then everyone will leave you alone to -rest. Your work will be done.” - -So she told them, summoning all her strength to repeat everything -correctly and in detail; and when she had finished she answered -their questions for more than an hour. The next day again they -questioned her. The attack upon the Soissons-Reims front was not yet -begun, they told her. Did they believe her? she asked. - -It was not the business of the intelligence officers to express -either belief or incredulity; their task was simply to ascertain -what she knew, or believed that she knew; to check her recital over -with discovered facts about her; to add her reports to the others, -both confirming and conflicting; and to pass the report on. - -Ruth herself was passed on the next day and requisitioned by other -men. Then she was taken to Paris and was left, undisturbed by -further examinations, to rest in a bed in a little private room at -one of the hospitals. She could not quite determine, during those -first days that she was detained there, whether she was in fact -under a sort of observational arrest or whether the constant care -which she received was solely to promote the return of her strength. - -For a semi-collapse had come--collapse of only physical powers. Her -mind was ceaselessly active--too active, the doctor told her. -Sometimes at night she could not sleep, but demanded that she be -allowed to rise, and dress, and go to the intelligence officers, or -have them come to her, so she could tell them her whole story again -in a way they must believe. - -If she could only make them see how Adler had looked; if she could -make them hear how his voice had sounded when he had spoken of that -Soissons-Reims front, they would not doubt her at all. If she could -speak with Gerry Hull again, perhaps he could help make them believe -her. But Gerry Hull was with his squadron. Only women were about -Ruth now, and doctors, and wounded men. So, day after day, she was -kept in bed awaiting the attack which--as all the world knows--came -on the twenty-seventh of May and against the French on the front -from Soissons to Reims. - -The day the great assault began Ruth demanded to get up, and--it -seemed until that day that someone must have doubted her--at last -she was permitted to do as she pleased. So she returned to the Rue -des Saints Pères and to her old rooms with Milicent; she wore again -the khaki uniform which she had worn in Picardy; and, after reading -the communiques that night, she applied for active duty as an -ambulance driver. - -That day the Germans had swept the French, in one single rush, from -the Chemin des Dames; the enemy were over the Aisne. Back, back; -everywhere the French, as the British in Picardy, were driven back, -yielding guns by the hundred, prisoners by the tens of thousands. -The Boche were over the Vesle now; they had Fismes. God! Again they -were upon the Marne! Could nothing stop them? Still they were -rushing onward, a broken army before them. - -Ruth was in Paris, where talk of a sort which she had never heard in -France before was upon everyone’s lips. France had given all and the -Germans yet advanced. Their guns hourly roared louder. Four years -ago, to be sure, their guns were heard as plainly in the Paris -streets; four years ago the German field gray had come even closer; -four years ago the government had abandoned Paris and prepared, even -though Paris were taken, to fight and fight. But that was four years -ago and the French army was young and unspent; Britain, then, had -barely begun to come in. France had gathered all her strength, and, -in her mighty hour at the Marne, had hurled back the enemy, “saving” -Paris! - -What mockery was that memory this day! Here, after the four years -and the spending of French and British strength, the Germans were at -the gates again only more numerous and more confident than before. - -Ruth stayed alone in her room during a lone afternoon writing to -Cynthia Gail’s father and mother a full confession of all that she -had done. Her whole enterprise, so hopefully taken up, had failed, -she said. She related what she had tried to do; indeed, in defense -of herself, she related how she had succeeded in entering Germany -and in learning something of the German plan for the great drive -which was now overwhelming the world; but she had failed to bring -back any proof which was required to convince the army that the -information she had gained was dependable. So she felt that she had -played Cynthia Gail’s part for no gain; she had no great achievement -to offer Cynthia’s parents in recompense for the wrong which she had -done them. - -She sealed and posted this, and now, at last, wrote to her own -mother fully of what she had done. Again the despair of the day -seized her. She wandered the streets where men--men who had not been -in the fighting during the four years--were talking of the allies -taking up a new line south of Paris and holding on there somehow -until America was ready. But when such talk went about Ruth gazed at -the eyes of the French who had been through the years of battle; and -she knew that, if the Germans won now, the French could do no more. - -Ever increasing streams of the wounded were flowing back into Paris; -and through the capital began spreading the confusion of catastrophe -nearby. The mighty emergency made demand upon the services of those -refused only a few hours earlier; and Ruth left Paris that night -upon the driving seat of a small ambulance. The next morning--it was -the first of June--she was close to the guns and upon a road where -was retreat. - -Retreat? Well, two months ago in Picardy when the English had gone -back before the Germans, Ruth had heard such a concourse to the rear -called retreat; so she tried to call this retreat--this dazed, -unresisted departure of soldiers from before the enemy’s advance. -What made it worse, they were the French--the poilus whom she met. -The French! When the British had been broken in Picardy and fell -back, fighting so desperately, they had sacrificed themselves to -stay the enemy until the arrival of the French! When the French had -arrived the German advance was stopped; the French had been the -saviors! But here the French were going back; and the British could -not, in turn, come to save them. - -These poilus did not expect it; they had ceased, indeed, to expect -anything. For the first time, as the poilus looked at her, she saw -the awfulness of hopelessness in their eyes. Four years they had -fought from Maubeuge to the Marne; to the Aisne; in the Champagne -they had attacked and gained; at Verdun they had stood alone; this -year at Kemmel they had sacrificed themselves and held on only to -meet at last, and in spite of all, the overwhelming disaster. - -Ruth tried to cry a word or two of cheer when a man saw and saluted -her; but her cry choked in her throat. These men were spent; they -were fought out; beaten. And just behind them, at Château-Thierry, -whence they had fled, was the Prussian guard coming on with these -beaten men between them and Paris. - -Ruth sat, half dizzy, half sick, at the wheel of the little car, -forcing it forward by these beaten men when the road offered a -chance. She was maneuvering toward a crossroad; and as she -approached it she noticed the French no longer trudging to the rear; -they were halted now; and as Ruth passed them and reached the direct -road to Château-Thierry she found them lined up beside the road, -waiting. Officers were clearing the way farther down; and as someone -halted Ruth’s car she stood up and stared along the rise of ground -to the south. - -A sound was coming over, borne by the morning breeze--a sound of -singing in loud, confident, boasting notes. Three notes, they were, -three times repeated--the three notes which were blown on the bugles -in Berlin when the kaiser or princes of the royal house were coming; -three blatant, bragging notes which Ruth had learned a year before -to mean, “Over there!” - - For the Yanks are coming; the Yanks are coming, - The drums rum-tumming everywhere.... - -Ruth caught to the side of the ambulance and held on tight. American -voices; thousands of them! American men; American soldiers singing! -Americans coming into this battle--coming forward into this battle, -singing! Swinging! She could see them now as they wound about the -hill--see the sun flashing on their bayonets, and the fine, -confident swing--the American swing--of their ranks as they -approached. - - The Yanks are coming; the Yanks are coming... - And we won’t go back till it’s over, over here! - -Ruth leaped up and screamed aloud with joy. - -“What is it, Mademoiselle?” one of the dazed poilus inquired. - -“The Americans are coming! Our men are here! Our Americans! _The -Yanks--the Yanks are coming!_” she shouted it in the rhythm of the -song. - -What had seized her that day upon the _Ribot_ when she saw the -_Starke_ come up and Gerry told her it was American; what had -thrilled through her that night she arrived in France; what had -stirred throughout her that morning near Mirevaux when the English -officer called out to her, “Good old America,” and she watched the -English march off to die; what had come when the French at last -arrived before Amiens; even that ecstasy of the bombs bursting over -Mannheim when she had sung _The Star-Spangled Banner_ and Gerry Hull -had found her; all those together surged through her combined and -intensified a thousand-fold. - -And this came not to her alone. It had come, too, to the French--the -French who had been falling back in flight--yes, in flight, one -could say it now--knowing that the Americans were behind them, but -expecting nothing of those Americans. Why they had expected nothing, -they did not know. At this moment it was incredible that--only the -instant before--they had been in total despair. - - The Yanks are coming; the Yanks are coming! - -They were marines who were coming; they were so close that Ruth -could see their uniforms; American marines, who marched past her -singing--swinging--on their way to kill and to die! For they were -going to kill--and to die. They knew it; that was why they sang as -they did; that was why they were so sure--so boastfully, absolutely -sure! - - ... send the word; send the word to beware! - -It was American; nothing else! No other men in the world could have -gone by so absolutely sure of themselves, singing--swinging--like -that. And oh, Ruth loved them! Her people; only a few, indeed, as -men were reckoned in this war; but such men! Still -singing--swinging--they swept by, drawing after them a vortex of the -French, who, a few moments before, had been abandoning the battle. -They were all past now, the Americans; oh, how few they had been to -face the German army with Paris and all the fate of France behind -them. - -A few miles on--it could not have been farther--the Americans met -the Germans; and what they did there in the woods near the tiny town -of Meaux came to Ruth in wonderful fashion. The battle, which each -hour--each moment through that terrible morning--had been steadily -coming nearer and nearer; the battle ceased to approach. There was -no doubt about it! The fighting, furious twice over and then more -furious, simply could not get closer. Now the battle was going back! -The marines--the American marines, sent in to stop the gap and hold -the Paris road--had not merely delayed the Prussian advance; they -had halted it and turned it back! - -That night Ruth learned a little of the miracle of the American -marines from one of the men who had fought. He had been brought -back, badly wounded, and for a time, while her ambulance was held -up, Ruth was able to administer to the man, and he talked to her. - -“Three miles, we threw ’em back, Miss! Not much, three miles, but in -the right direction. They asked us to delay ’em. Delay ’em; hell ... -excuse me, Miss.” - -“Oh, that’s all right,” Ruth cried. “Oh, that’s fine! Say it -again--our way!” - -“That’s all they asked us; to delay ’em. I was right near -Wise”--Wise was the lieutenant colonel--“when we got our orders. We -was to get in touch with the Germans and hold up their advance as -long as we could; and then retreat to a prepared position. - -“‘Retreat?’ Wise yelled. ‘Retreat? Hell! We’ve just come!’ Well, -Miss, we got in touch! Oh, we got in touch, all right; touched ’em -with bayonets and butts. They couldn’t like it. Couldn’t quite -believe at first; didn’t think it was true; so we had to prove it to -’em, you see. Three miles back toward Berlin; not much; but--you -admit--in the right direction.” - -“I admit it,” Ruth said; and--the boy was very badly hurt--she -kissed him before she climbed back to her seat. - -The next day, when she at last allowed herself to rest, she wrote a -letter to Gerry. She had no idea where he was; so she addressed him -in care of his old squadron. She had no definite notion of their -present relations; what he had said, or what she herself had said, -during and following their flight back to France, she simply did not -know; for during that time she had dreamed extreme, incredible -things, which, nevertheless, fastened themselves upon her with such -reality that she could not now separate, with any certainty, the -false from the true. - -That he had come for her, boldly, recklessly; that he and a -companion had succeeded in taking her from the _schloss_ and -bringing her back with them were facts which might be the foundation -of--anything between Gerry and herself or of no more than had -existed before. - -Yet something--a good deal--had existed at the time they had parted -on the Rue des Saints-Pères before she went to Switzerland. That was -quite a lot to return to, and the only safe feeling to assume in him -was that which he had confessed to her there. So she wrote this day -chiefly of the marvel which she had seen--the miracle of the arrival -of the Americans, which, as the world already knew, had saved Paris. - -She received reply from him after two weeks--a brief yet intimate -note, telling her that her wonderful letter had welcomed him just -ten minutes ago, when he had returned from a patrol. He had only a -minute now; but he must reply at once. - - I want to tell you, Ruth, that you have the right to feel - that your work contributed to the arrival of our marines - at the right moment, at the right place. You are familiar - enough with war now to know that troop dispositions must - be made far ahead. Your information was, of course, not - the only warning to reach the general staff that the - attack was to come where it did. But I am now permitted to - tell you that your information was believed to be honest; - therefore it had weight, and its weight was sufficient - undoubtedly to make our command certain, a few hours - earlier than they otherwise might have been certain, of - the direction of the German attack; and, throughout the - front, reserves were started to the threatened points a - few hours sooner. Yours ever, - Gerry. - -The day after Ruth received this the Germans started their attack of -the fifteenth of July; three days later the allied counter attack -was striking in full force and the armies of the German Crown Prince -were fighting for their lives against the French and Americans, to -get back out of the Marne “pocket.” Then, in the north, the English -struck and won their greatest victories. It was August; September, -and still, from Switzerland to the sea, the allies advanced; the -Germans went back. And still from across the sea, three hundred -thousand American soldiers arrived monthly. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII: “THE WAR’S OVER” - - -Ruth was working in a canteen with the American army now--or, -rather, with one of the American armies. Her particular army -occupied the bending front about the St. Mihiel salient, east of -Verdun. Gerry--she heard of him frequently, but from him only when -the chances of the mails brought letters along the lines of the -shifting armies--Gerry was doing combat flying again with the -American forces operating farthest to the west. She was close behind -an active battle front again, as by secret night marches the -American First Army with its tanks and artillery concentrated on the -south side of the salient from Aprémont to Pont-à-Mousson. - -Ruth went about glowing with the glory of the gathering of the -fighting men of her people. Many times when she looked up at the -approach of a tall, alert figure in pilot’s uniform, her heart -halted with hope that Gerry had come among the flyers to aid in this -operation; then she heard, with final definiteness, that he was -still kept at his combat work farther west. The gathering of the -army, however, brought Hubert Lennon. - -Ruth had not seen him since March; and his manner of reappearance -was characteristic. On the evening of the eleventh of September, the -sense of the impending had reached the climax which forewarned of -immediate events; and the troops who were to go “over the top” at -some near hour, and also the support divisions which were to follow, -were being kept close to their commands. The canteen where Ruth was -working was deserted long before the usual time, and Ruth was busy -putting away dishes when someone entered and coughed, -apologetically, to attract her attention. She glanced up to see a -spare young man in the uniform of an ambulance driver and wearing -thick spectacles. His face was in the shadow, with only his glasses -glinting light until he took off his cap and said: - -“Hello, Miss Alden.” - -Ruth dropped the dish she was holding. “Hubert! I didn’t know how -much I’ve needed to see you!” And she thrust both her hands across -the counter and seized his hand and squeezed it. - -He flushed ruddy under his brown weather-beatenness, and she held -tighter to the hand he was timidly attempting to draw away--still -her shy, self-effacing Hubert. By hailing her by her own name, he -had informed her at once that he knew all about her; and he had not -assumed to replace his former familiar “Cynthia” with “Ruth.” - -“You--no one’s needed me,” he denied, more abashed by the warmness -of his welcome. - -“You frightened me about you at first, Hubert,” she scolded him, -“when you went away and--except for a couple of postcards--you never -sent me a word. Then I heard of you through other people----” - -“Gerry?” - -“Yes; Gerry or Mrs. Mayhew; and I found you were always all right.” - -He winced, and she reproached herself for not remembering how -terribly sensitive he was about not being in the combat forces. “I -certainly never expected you’d worry about me.” - -“But you’ve been wounded!” she cried, observing now as he shifted a -little that he moved as do those who have been hurt in the hip. -“Hubert, what was it and when?” - -“Air raid; that’s all. Might have got it in Paris--or London.” - -“Look at me; where and when?” - -“Well, then, field hospital near Fismes early in August. I’m quite -all right now.” - -Ruth’s eyes suddenly suffused. She had heard about that field -hospital and how the German flyers had bombed it again and again, -strewing death pitilessly, and how the attendants upon the wounded -had worked, reckless of themselves, in an inferno. “Hubert, you were -there?” - -“That was nothing to where you’ve been, I reckon.” - -“I’ve never thanked you,” Ruth replied, remembering, “for not -telling on me that time you caught me on the train from Bordeaux.” - -“How’d you know I caught you then?” - -Ruth told him. He looked down. “I was pretty sure on the _Ribot_ -that you weren’t Cynthia, Miss Alden,” he said, “but I was -absolutely sure I wasn’t doing anything risky--to the country--in -keeping still. By the way, I’ve a letter from Cynthia’s people for -you.” - -He reached into a pocket and Ruth studied him, wonderingly. “How -long have you been here, Hubert?” - -“Oh, three or four days.” - -“How long have you known where I was?” - -He hesitated. “Why, almost all the time--except during the retreat -in March, and then when you were in Switzerland and in Germany--I’ve -known fairly well where you were.” - -“Why didn’t you come to me four days ago?” - -“Didn’t have this till today.” He produced a letter postmarked -Decatur, Illinois, and in the familiar handwriting of Cynthia Gail’s -father. “You see, after Gerry brought you back and everything was -out, I thought the only right thing--to you, Miss Alden, as well as -to them--was to write Cynthia’s people. I knew you would, of course, -but I thought you wouldn’t say, about yourself, what you should. So -I did it. Here’s what they say.” - -He handed the letter to her, and Ruth withdrew nearer a lamp to read -it. They were still quite alone in the corner of the canteen, and as -Ruth read the letter written by the father of the girl whose part -she had played, tears of gratitude and joy blinded her--gratitude -not alone to the noble-hearted man and woman in Decatur, but quite -as much to the friend who had written of her to them with such -understanding as to make possible this letter. - -She came back to him with tears running down her cheeks and she -seized his hand again. “Oh, Hubert, thank you; thank you! I don’t -think anything ever made me so happy in all my life.” - -“You know Byrne’s dead, do you?” - -“No! Is he? He died from that----” - -“Not from that, Miss Alden. He completely recovered. He was killed -cleanly leading his platoon in the fighting on the Vesle. He had -written Cynthia’s people about you forgiving you, you see.” - -Hubert turned to the door and opened it and gazed out through the -dark about the hills and woods where that night the hundreds of -thousands of Americans of the First Army lay. “Funny about us being -back here, isn’t it?” he said, with the reflective philosophy which -he was likely to employ when dismissing one subject. “I’ve been -thinking about it a lot these last days, seeing our fellows -everywhere--so awful many of them. Everyone of ’em--or their -fathers--came from this side first of all because they didn’t like -the way things were going in Europe, and they wanted to get away -from it. But they couldn’t get away from it by just leaving it. They -had to come back after all to settle the trouble. That’s an -interesting idea, when you think of it, isn’t it?” - -“Yes,” said Ruth. “Hubert----” - -“How does Gerry feel about being an American now?” - -“I’ve not talked with Gerry for more than three months.” - -“Being an American,” Hubert mused, “being an American is some -privilege these days--even if you only drive an ambulance. To be -Gerry Hull now!” He gazed at Ruth, who looked away, but who could -not stop color suffusing her face under his challenge. He glanced -about the room and observed that they were quite alone. - -“I’ve wondered a good bit recently, Miss Alden,” he said in a queer, -repressed matter-of-fact way, “whether you might prefer--or might -not prefer--to have me tell you that I love you. You must know it, -of course; and since it’s a fact, sometimes it seemed that we might -be better friends hereafter if I just told you that fact. You know -I’ve not any silly idea that you could care for me. No; don’t -please!” he stopped her, when she attempted to speak. “We’ll not -arrive anywhere except by sticking to facts; we’re friends; may we -ever be!” - -“O, we will be, Hubert!” - -“Then it is better that I’ve told you I love you.” - -“But you mustn’t!” - -“I can’t control that, Miss Alden.” - -“Mayn’t I be Ruth even now?” - -“Ruth, then; yes, I like that. Good night, Ruth.” - -“You must go? But tomorrow you’ll----” - -“Tomorrow no one knows where any one’ll be. But it’s been great to -see you again.” - -“And you, Hubert! Good night; good luck, and--thank you again a -thousand times.” - -He went; and on the morrow, as everyone knows, the American First -Army went “over the top,” and at night the St. Mihiel salient, which -had stuck like a Titanic thorn in the flank of France for four -years, was wiped out; the American guns in the next days engaged the -guns of the outer fortresses of Metz. - -In the stream of casualties, which was the American cost of the -victory, Hubert was swept to the rear. Ruth read his name cited in -the orders of a certain day for extraordinary coolness and devotion -in caring for the wounded under fire. He himself was wounded again -severely, and Ruth tried to visit him at the hospital to which he -was sent; but she was able only to learn that he was convalescing -and had been transferred to the south of France. - -She read, a little later, another familiar name--Sam Hilton. There -might be other Sam Hiltons in the army; on the other hand, she was -familiar enough with the swiftness with which the draft had cleared -out Class I in America, to be certain that the Sam Hilton for whom -she had worked in January must now be somewhere in the American -army, and the particular Sam Hilton who was mentioned was a corporal -in an Illinois regiment which had been most heavily engaged in the -desperate fighting in the forest of the Argonne. He was -awarded--Ruth read--the military medal for extraordinary bravery -under fire and for display of daring and initiative which enabled -him to keep together a small command after the officers were killed -and finally to outwit and capture a superior German force. - -Somehow it sounded like Sam Hilton to Ruth. “He got in the army and -got interested; that’s all,” she said to herself as she reread the -details. “He wouldn’t let anyone bluff him; and--yes, that sounds -just like Sam Hilton after he got interested.” - -This was late in the fall; the Argonne then was cleared; and by a -shift of the divisions who were pressing constantly after the -retreating Germans, Ruth found herself in the last week of October -attached to the American units fighting their way to Sedan. -Infantrymen of the Illinois regiment, which possessed the decorated -Sam Hilton, came into the canteen and Ruth asked about him. Everyone -seemed to know him. Yes, he came from Chicago, and had been in the -real estate business; he was in a battalion which recently had been -heavily engaged again, but now was in reserve and resting nearby. - -Ruth visited, upon the next afternoon, the little, just recaptured -French village about which the battalion was billeted; and right on -the main street she met--medal and all--Sam Hilton. He was seated -before a cottage and was very popular with and intent upon the -villagers gathered about; so Ruth had a good look at him before he -observed her. In his trim uniform and new chevrons--he was sergeant -now--he never looked “classier” in his life. - -He appeared to have appointed himself a committee of one to -investigate the experiences of the inhabitants of that village -during the four years of German occupation, and he had found an -interpreter--a French boy of thirteen or fourteen--who was putting -into rather precarious English the excited recitals of the peasants. - -Ruth approached when one series of translation was coming to an end, -and Sergeant Sam Hilton looked up and recognized her. “Why, hello; -you here, too, Miss Alden?” - -He had been long enough in France so that he was not really much -amazed to encounter anyone. “Come here and listen to what the Huns -been doing to these people, Miss Alden,” he invited her, after she -had replied to his greeting. “Say, do you know that’s the way they -been acting for four years? We’re a fine bunch, I should say, -letting that sort of stuff go on for three years and over before we -stepped in. What was the matter with our government, anyway--not -letting us know. I tell you----” - -It took him many minutes to express properly his indignation at the -tardiness of the American declaration of war. Yet certain features -of the situation enormously perplexed him. - -“What gets my goat,” he confessed, “is how we’re so blamed popular, -Miss Alden. We Americans are well liked--awful well liked, ain’t -we?” - -“We certainly are,” Ruth agreed. - -“We’re liked not just as well as the English, far as I can see, but -better. Yes, better. That certainly gets my goat; out of it three -years; in it, one; and not really in it all of one yet; and -we’re--_top hole_. That’s a British expression, Miss Alden; means -absolutely _it_.” - -“Yes,” said Ruth; “I’ve heard it.” - -“Well, we’re that; _top hole_. How does it happen? What’ve we done -that others ain’t that makes them feel so about Americans over -here?” - -Ruth could not answer. She could only accept, at last, an invitation -to lunch with him the first time they met again in any city where -they had restaurants. - -The perplexity which Sam Hilton felt was being shared by many and -many another American in those days which swiftly were sweeping -toward the end of the war; and not least among the perplexed was -Gerry Hull. - -That strange morning had arrived upon which battle was to be entered -against the Germans, as usual, and to be continued until eleven -o’clock; after eleven was to be truce. Gerry was on patrol that -morning, flying a single-seater Spad in a formation which hovered -high in the morning sky to protect the photographic machines and the -fire-control airplanes which were going about their business as -usual over the German lines, taking pictures of the ground, and, by -wireless, guiding the fire of the American guns. - -The American guns were going it, loud and fast, and the German guns -were replying; they might halt at eleven, but no love was being lost -upon this last day. - -About the middle of the morning German combat planes appeared. Gerry -was among the first to sight them and dash forward. Seven or eight -American machines followed him; and for the swift seconds of the -first attack they kept somewhat to formation. Then all line was lost -in a diving, tumbling, looping, climbing, side-slipping maelstrom of -machines fighting three miles above the ground. Each pilot selected -a particular antagonist, and Gerry found himself circling out of the -mêlée while he maneuvered for position with a new triplane Fokker, -whose pilot appeared to have taken deep dislike for him. - -The German was a good flyer--an old hand in a new machine, Gerry -thought. At any rate, Gerry could obtain neither the position -directly above him or just behind him--“on the tail.” They fired at -each other several times passing, but that was no way to hit -anything. Several times, of course, they got widely separated--once -for an interval long enough to give Gerry chance to aid another -American who was being pressed by two Germans, and to send one of -the Germans down out of control. Then Gerry’s particular enemy -appeared and they were at it again. - -Gerry climbed better now and got above him; Gerry dived, and the -German, waiting just the right time, side-slipped and tumbled out -from underneath. Gerry checked his dive and got about behind him. -Gerry was coming upon him fast, behind, and just a trifle below--in -almost perfect firing position--when he saw the German look back and -hold up his hand. Gerry held his fire, and, coming up closer, he saw -the German jerk his hooded head and point groundward. Gerry gazed -down upon a stark and silent land. - -The spots of shells were gone. Where they had erupted and flung up -great billows of sand, and where their smoke had puffed and floated, -the surface lay bland and yellow under the morning sun. Truce had -come--truce which the German pilot in the Fokker alongside -signalized by wave of his hand. Gerry raised his hands from his gun -lanyard, and, a little dazedly, waved back, and he let the German -steer away. Gerry swung his own ship about, and, flying low over an -anomalous land of man-specks walking all about in the open, he shut -off his motor and came down in his airdrome. - -Silence--except for voices and motor noises--silence! And nothing -particular to do or to expect; nothing immediately threatening you; -death no longer probable. Truce! - -Gerry joined the celebrants; but soon he retreated to the refuge of -his quarters, where he was alone. It was rather confounding suddenly -to find yourself with the right to expect to live. To live! What -amazing impatience this morning aroused. He had leave to depart in -two hours to spend a week wherever he pleased; and while the minutes -dallied and dragged, he reread the last letter he had received from -Ruth, which had arrived four days ago. She had mentioned that she -expected to be sent to Paris, so Gerry found place upon the Paris -train; and, upon arriving in the city, he took a taxi to the Rue des -Saints Pères. - -The little French girl, who opened the door of the familiar -_pension_, said, yes, Mademoiselle Alden was in Paris and, also, at -that moment actually in her room. Gerry entered the parlor and sat -down; but he could not remain still while he waited. He arose and -went about staring vacantly at the pictures upon the walls, seeing -no one of them, but hearing every slightest sound in the house which -might mean that Mademoiselle Alden was coming downstairs. He heard -light footfalls upon the floor above, which, he decided, were hers -as she moved about, dressing; and he wondered what dress she was -putting on--the pretty yellow dress which she had worn at Mrs. -Corliss’ or the uniform she had worn upon the retreat from Mirevaux. -He liked her in both; he didn’t care which she wore, if she would -only come. - -He heard her step on the stair; he started to the door, impulsively. -But the little French girl might be about; so he drew back to the -center of the room and stood there until Ruth appeared. Then his -arms went out to her and, regardless of who might hear, he rushed to -her, calling her name. - -She was small and slender and round and with her face almost white -from some absurd uncertainty about him and with her eyes wide. She -wore neither the beautiful yellow gown nor the uniform but a simple -blue dress of the sort which girls wear in the morning when they go -out, or in the afternoon, but which they do not put on particularly -for an evening call. Gerry was not critical; he thought the dress -mightily became her; but it made her bewilderingly demure. - -“What is it, Ruth? You’re not glad I came right to you?” - -“Glad! Oh, Gerry, my soul’s been singing since I heard your voice -down here and I knew that you’d come and you’re safe; and the war’s -over!” - -He had her in his arms, her slight, vibrant figure close to him, her -eyes turned up to his. Gently--gently as upon that time when she -disengaged his fingers from his clasp of her shoulders--she raised -her hands and put them upon his breast and thrust him back. The -touch of her hands and the tenderness of her strength sent rills of -delight racing through him, but he did not understand them. - -“Ruth, I love you; can’t you love me?” - -“Love you!” Her eyes closed for a moment as though she no longer -dared to look at him. Her resistance to him had relaxed; now she -thrust back from him again; but he did not permit it. He overpowered -her, drawing her against him. So she opened her eyes. - -“The war’s over, Gerry.” - -“Thank God, Ruth!... I couldn’t let myself even dream of this -before, dearest.” - -“You mustn’t say that!” - -“Why not?” - -“We’ll all be going back soon, Gerry--those of us who’ve lived--back -to what we’ve been before. That’s why I kept you waiting so long. I -had to change to this.” She looked down at her dress and he released -her a little to glance down also, wonderingly. - -“Why? What about it, dear?” - -“It’s my own--the only thing of mine you’ve ever seen me in; I used -to wear this at the office where I worked. You know, I told you.” - -“I wondered why I loved you more than ever before, Ruth. Oh, silly -sweetheart! You think you’re going back to an office!” He laughed, -delightedly. - -“No; we must think the truth, Gerry. We’ve been moving in madness -through the war, my love!” - -“Ah! You’ve said that!” - -“I didn’t mean it! We mustn’t imagine that everything’s to be -changed for us just because we’ve met in war and----” - -“And you’ve saved me, Ruth!” - -“You saved me, too!” - -“Oh, we shan’t argue that, dear. But about not being changed--well -I’m changed incurably and forever, my love. I mean that! You’ve done -most of the changing too. Did you think you’d made me an American -only for duration of the war?” - -“But Gerry, we must think. You’ll go home and have all your -grandfather’s buildings and money and----” - -“You’ll have all, too, and me besides, dear--if you want me? Do you -suppose that all these months I haven’t been thinking, too? Do you -suppose I’d want you for a wife only in war? I want you, Ruth--and -I’ll need you even more, I think, to help me in the peace to come. -But that’s not why I’m here. I want you--you--now and forever! Can I -have you?” - -“You have me,” Ruth said. “And I--I have you!” - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUTH OF THE U. S. A. *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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A., by Edwin Balmer</title> - <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover" /> - <style> - body { margin-left:8%; margin-right:8%; } - p { text-indent:1.15em; margin-top:0.1em; margin-bottom:0.1em; text-align:justify; } - h2 { text-align:center; font-weight:normal; page-break-before: always; - font-size:1.0em; margin-top:3em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; } - h2.nobreak { page-break-before: avoid; } - .ce { text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; } - table.toc {} - table { page-break-inside: avoid; width:100%; } - table.tcenter { border-collapse:collapse; padding:3px; - margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom:0.5em; - margin-left:2em; } - td { vertical-align:top; } - td.c1 { text-align:right; padding-right:0.7em; } - td.c2 { font-variant:small-caps; } - .poetry { display:block; text-align:left; } - .poetry .stanza { margin-top:0.7em; margin-bottom:0.7em; margin-left:4em; } - .poetry .verse { text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em; } - .poetry-container { text-align: center; } - div.cbline { margin-left:1.4em; text-indent:-1.4em; } - .wifpc { margin-left:15%; width:70% } - .witpg { margin-left:45%; width:10% } - .wi001 { margin-left:15%; width:70% } - .wi002 { margin-left:15%; width:70% } - .x-ebookmaker .wifpc { margin-left:5%; width:90% } - .x-ebookmaker .witpg { margin-left:37%; width:26% } - .x-ebookmaker .wi001 { margin-left:5%; width:90% } - .x-ebookmaker .wi002 { margin-left:5%; width:90% } - .caption { text-indent:0; padding:0.5em 0; text-align:center; } - .mt01 { margin-top:1em; } - .mb01 { margin-bottom:1em; } - h1 { text-align:center; font-weight:normal; font-size:1.4em; margin-top:3em; margin-bottom:1em; } - div.section { margin-top:3em; margin-bottom:3em; } - div.bq { margin-left:7%; margin-right:7%; } - li { margin-bottom: 0.4em; } - .chapter {} - .transnote { - background-color: #fcf8f4; - border: 1px solid silver; - font-size: 0.9em; - font-family: sans-serif, serif; - margin-left: 5%; - margin-right: 5%; - margin-top: 4em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - padding: 1em; - } - .x-ebookmaker .transnote { - page-break-inside: avoid; - margin-left: 2%; - margin-right: 2%; - margin-top: 1em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - padding: .5em; - } - </style> -</head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ruth of the U. S. A., by Edwin Balmer</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Ruth of the U. S. A.</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Edwin Balmer</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Illustrator: Harold H. Betts</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 12, 2022 [eBook #68296]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUTH OF THE U. S. A. ***</div> - -<div class='section'> - <h1>Ruth of the U. S. A. </h1> - <div id='ifpc' class='mt01 mb01 wifpc'> - <img src='images/illus-fpc.jpg' alt='' style='width:100%' /> - <p class='caption'>Ruth crouched beside Gerry, and shot through the wreckage at the circling German plane</p> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='section'> - <div class='ce'> - <div style='font-size:1.4em;margin-bottom:1em;'>Ruth of the U. S. A. </div> - <div style='margin-bottom:0.5em;'>By Edwin Balmer </div> - <div style='margin-bottom:1em;'>Illustrated by Harold H. Betts </div> - </div> - <div id='itpg' class='mt01 mb01 witpg'> - <img src='images/illus-tpg.jpg' alt='' style='width:100%' /> - </div> - <div class='ce'> - <div>CHICAGO </div> - <div style='font-size:1.1em;'>A. C. McCLURG & CO. </div> - <div>1919 </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='section'> - <div style='text-align:center'> - <div>Copyright</div> - <div>A. C. McClurg & Co.</div> - <div style="margin-bottom:0.7em;">1919</div> - <div>Copyright</div> - <div>The Tribune Company</div> - <div style="margin-bottom:0.7em;">1918</div> - <div style="margin-bottom:0.7em;">Published March, 1919</div> - <div style="margin-bottom:0.7em; font-style:italic">Copyrighted in Great Britain</div> - <div style="font-size:0.9em;">W. F. HALL PRINTING COMPANY, CHICAGO</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='section'> - <div class='ce'> - <div>TO</div> - <div>THE MEMORY OF</div> - <div><span style='font-size:1.2em'>My father</span></div> - <div>AN ENGLISHMAN AND AN</div> - <div>AMERICAN </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='section'> - <div style='text-align:center'>CONTENTS</div> - <table class='toc tcenter' style='margin-bottom:3em'> - <tbody> - <tr><td class='c1'>I</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chI'>A Beggar and a Passport</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>II</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chII'>The Wand of War</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>III</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chIII'>The New Rôle</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>IV</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chIV'>At Mrs. Corliss’</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>V</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chV'>“You’re Not Like Anyone Else”</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>VI</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chVI'>“We’re Fighting”</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>VII</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chVII'>“One of Our Own!”</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>VIII</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chVIII'>France</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>IX</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chIX'>To Picardy</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>X</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chX'>The Great Attack</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>XI</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chXI'>The Resistance</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>XII</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chXII'>“How Could This Happen?”</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>XIII</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chXIII'>Byrne Arrives</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>XIV</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chXIV'>Full Confession</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>XV</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chXV'>Gerry’s Problem</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>XVI</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chXVI'>Into Germany</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>XVII</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chXVII'>The Road to Lauengratz</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>XVIII</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chXVIII'>The Message in Cipher</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>XIX</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chXIX'>The Underground Railway</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>XX</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chXX'>An Officers’ Prison</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>XXI</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chXXI'>The Raid on the Schloss</a></td></tr> - <tr><td class='c1'>XXII</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chXXII'>“The War’s Over”</a></td></tr> - </tbody> - </table> -</div> - -<div class="section"> - <div style="text-align:center">ILLUSTRATIONS</div> - <div class='bq'> - <ul style="list-style: none;"> - <li><a href="#ifpc">Ruth crouched beside Gerry, and shot through the wreckage at the circling German plane</a></li> - <li><a href="#i001">She looked away, half expecting the sound of the music, and the roses, and palms, and Gerry Hull would vanish</a></li> - <li><a href="#i002">Gerry was there at the door of her cell; another man was with him; a friend</a></li> - </ul> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="section"> - <div class="transnote"> - <div style="text-align:center">Transcriber’s Notes</div> - <ol> - <li>As printed, this book omitted words in sentences in - about eight places. This edition of the book retains those sentences - as printed to accurately represent the original publication.</li> - <li>Otherwise, misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. - Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.</li> - </ol> - </div> -</div> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chI' title='I. A Beggar and a Passport'> - <span style='font-size:1.4em;'>RUTH OF THE U. S. A.</span><br/><br/> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>CHAPTER I</span><br /><span style='font-size:1.0em'>A BEGGAR AND A PASSPORT</span> -</h2> - -<p>It was the day for great destinies. Germany was starving; yet German -armies, stronger and better prepared than ever before, were about to -annihilate the British and the French. Austria, crumbling, was -secretly suing for peace; yet Austria was awaiting only the melting -of snow in the mountain passes before striking for Venice and Padua. -Russia was reorganizing to fight again on the side of the allies; -Russia, prostrate, had become a mere reservoir of manpower for the -Hohenzollerns. The U-boats were beaten; the U-boats were sweeping -the seas. America had half a million men in France; America had only -“symbolical battalions” parading in Paris.</p> - -<p>A thousand lies balanced a thousand denials; the pointer of -credulity swung toward the lies again; and so it swung and swung -with everything uncertain but the one fact which seemed, on this -day, perfectly plain—American effort had collapsed. America not only -had failed to aid her allies during the nine months since she had -entered the war; she seemed to have ceased even to care for herself. -Complete proof of this was that for five days now industries had -been shut down, offices were empty, furnaces cold.</p> - -<p>Upon that particular Tuesday morning, the fifth day of this halt, a -girl named Ruth Alden awoke in an underheated room at an Ontario -Street boarding house—awoke, merely one of the millions of the -inconsiderable in Chicago as yet forbidden any extraordinary -transaction either to her credit or to her debit in the mighty -accounts of the world war. If it be true that tremendous fates -approaching cast their shadows before, she was unconscious of such -shadows as she arose that morning. To be sure, she reminded herself -when she was dressing that this was the day that Gerry Hull was -arriving home from France; and she thought about him a good deal; -but this was only as thousands of other romance-starved girls of -twenty-two or thereabouts, who also were getting up by gaslight in -underheated rooms at that January dawn, were thinking about Gerry -Hull. That was, Ruth would like, if she could, to welcome him home -to his own people and to thank him that day, in the name of his city -and of his country, for what he had done. But this was to her then -merely a wild, unrealizable fantasy.</p> - -<p>What was actual and immediately before her was that Mr. Sam -Hilton—the younger of the Hilton brothers, for whom she was office -manager—had a real estate deal on at his office. He was to be there -at eight o’clock, whether the office was heated or not, and she also -was to be there to draw deeds and releases and so on; for someone -named Cady who was over draft age, but had himself accepted by an -engineer regiment, was sacrificing a fine factory property for a -quick sale and Sam Hilton, who was in class one but still hoped -somehow to avoid being called, was snapping up the bargain.</p> - -<p>So Ruth hurried downtown much as usual upon that cold morning; and -she felt only a little more conscious contempt for Sam Hilton—and -for herself—as she sat beside him from eight until after nine, with -her great coat on and with her hands pulled up in her sleeves to -keep them warm while he schemed and reschemed to make a certain -feature of his deal with the patriotic Cady more favorable to -himself. He had tossed the morning paper upon his desk in front of -him with the columns folded up which displayed Gerry Hull’s picture -in his uniform and which told about Gerry Hull’s arriving that -morning and about his service in France. Thus Ruth knew that Sam -Hilton had been reading about Lieutenant Hull also; and, indeed, -Hilton referred to him when he had made the last correction upon the -contract and was in good humor and ready to put business aside for a -few minutes and be personal.</p> - -<p>“Gerry Hull’s come home today from France, I see. Some fighter, that -boy!” he exclaimed with admiration. “Ain’t he?”</p> - -<p>Ruth gazed at Hilton with wonder. She could have understood a man -like Sam Hilton if he refused to read at all about Gerry Hull; or -she could have understood if, reading, Sam Hilton denied admiration. -But how could a young man know about Lieutenant Hull and admire him -and feel no personal reproach at himself staying safe and satisfied -and out of “it”?</p> - -<p>“Some flier!” he was going on with his enthusiastic praise. “How -many Huns has he got—fourteen?”</p> - -<p>Ruth knew the exact number; but she did not tell him. “Lieutenant -Hull is here under orders and upon special duty,” she said. “They -sent him home or he wouldn’t be away from the front now.” The blood -warmed in her face as she delivered this rebuke gently to Sam -Hilton. He stared at her and the color deepened, staining her clear, -delicate temples and forehead. “They had to send him here to stir us -up.”</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter with us?” Sam Hilton questioned with honest lack -of concern. Her way of mentioning Gerry Hull had not hit him at all; -and he was not seeking any answer to his question. He was watching -Ruth flush and thinking that she was mighty pretty with as much -color as she had now. He liked her in that coat, too; for the collar -of dark fur, though not of good quality, made her youthful face even -more “high class” looking than usual. Sam Hilton spent a great deal -of money on his own clothes without ever achieving the coveted -“class” in his appearance; while this girl, who worked for him and -who had only one outfit that he ever saw, always looked right. She -came of good people, he knew—little town people and not rich, since -she had to work and send money home; but they were “refined.”</p> - -<p>Ruth’s bearing and general appearance had pretty well assured Sam of -this—the graceful way she stood straight and held up her head, the -oval contour of her face as well as the pretty, proud little nose -and chin, sweet and yet self-reliant like her eyes which were blue -and direct and thoughtful looking below brown brows. Her hair was -lighter than her brows and she had a great deal of it; a little wavy -and a marvelous amber in color and in quality. It seemed to take in -the sunlight like amber when she moved past the window and to let -the light become a part of it. Her hands which she thrust from her -sleeves now and clasped in front of her, were small and well shaped, -though strong and capable too. She had altogether so many “refined” -characteristics that it was only to make absolutely certain about -her and her family that Sam had paid someone ten dollars to verify -the information about herself which she had supplied when he had -employed her. This information, fully verified, was that her father, -who was dead, had been an attorney at Onarga, Illinois, where her -mother was living with three younger sisters, the oldest fourteen. -Mrs. Alden took sewing; and since Ruth sent home fifteen dollars a -week out of her twenty-five, the family got along. This fifteen -dollars a week, totaling seven hundred and eighty a year which the -family would continue to need and would expect from Ruth or from -whomever married her, bothered Sam Hilton. But he thought this -morning that she was worth wasting that much for as he watched her -small hands clasping, watched the light upon her hair and the flush -sort of fluttering—now fading, now deepening—on her smooth cheek. -Having banished business from his mind, he was thinking about her so -intently that it did not occur to him that she could be thinking of -anyone else. Sam Hilton could not easily imagine anyone flushing -thus merely because she was dreaming of a boy whom she had never met -and could never meet and who certainly wouldn’t know or care -anything about her.</p> - -<p>“He was hurt a couple of weeks ago,” she said, “or probably he -wouldn’t have left at all.”</p> - -<p>That jolted Sam Hilton. It did not bring him any rebuke; it simply -made him angry that this girl had been dreaming all that time about -Gerry Hull instead of about himself.</p> - -<p>“Was the Lady Agnes hurt too?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Hurt? No.”</p> - -<p>“Well, she’s come with him.” Sam leaned forward and referred to the -folded newspaper. “‘Lady Agnes Ertyle, the daughter of the late Earl -of Durran who was killed at Ypres in 1915, whose two brothers fell, -one at Jutland on the <i>Invincible</i> and the other at Cambrai,’” he -read aloud, “‘is also in the party.’” He skipped down the column -condensing the following paragraphs: “She’s to stay at his mamma’s -house on Astor Street while in Chicago. She’s twenty-one; her -picture was printed yesterday. Did you see it?”</p> - -<p>This was a direct question; and Ruth had to answer, “Yes.”</p> - -<p>“He’s satisfied with her, I should say; but maybe he’s come home to -look further,” Sam said with his heaviest sarcasm. He straightened, -satisfied that he had brought Ruth back to earth. “Now I’m going -over to see Cady; he’ll sign this as it is, I think.” Sam put the -draft of the contract in his pocket. “He leaves town this noon, so -he has to. I’ll be all clear by twelve. You’re clear for the day -now. Have lunch with me, Miss Alden?”</p> - -<p>Ruth refused him quietly. He often asked her for lunch and she -always refused; so he was used to it.</p> - -<p>“All right. You’re free for the day,” he repeated generously and, -without more ceremony, he hurried off to Cady.</p> - -<p>Ruth waited until he had time to leave the building before she -closed the office and went down the stairs. She stepped out to the -street, only one girl among thousands that morning dismissed from -bleak offices—one of thousands to whom it seemed ignominious that -day, when all the war was going so badly and when Gerry Hull was -arriving from France, to go right back to one’s room and do nothing -more for the war than to knit until it was time to go to bed and -sleep to arise next morning to come down to make out more deeds and -contracts for men like Sam Hilton.</p> - -<p>Had it been a month or two earlier, Ruth again would have made the -rounds of the headquarters where girls gave themselves for real war -work; but now she knew that further effort would be fruitless. -Everyone in Chicago, who possessed authority to select girls for -work in France, knew her registration card by heart—her name, her -age, the fact that she had a high-school education. They were -familiar with the occupations in which she claimed experience—office -assistant; cooking; care of children (had she not taken care of her -sisters?); first aid; can drive motor car; operate typewriter. -Everyone knew that her health was excellent; her sight and hearing -perfect. She would go “anywhere”; she would start “at any time.” But -everyone also knew that answer which truth had obliged her to write -to the challenge, “What persons dependent upon you, if any?” So -everyone knew that though Ruth Alden would give herself to any work, -someone had to find, above her expenses, seven hundred and eighty -dollars a year for her family.</p> - -<p>Accordingly she could think of nothing better to do this morning -than to join the throng of those who were going to Michigan Avenue -and to the building where the British and French party, with which -Gerry Hull was traveling, would be welcomed to the city. Ruth had no -idea of being admitted to the building; she merely stood in the -crowd upon the walk; but close to where she stood, a limousine -halted. A window of the car was down; and suddenly Ruth saw Gerry -Hull right before her. She knew him at once from his picture; he was -tall and active looking, even though sitting quiet in the car; he -was bending forward a bit and the sudden, slight motions of his -straight, lithe shoulders and the quick turn of his head as he gazed -out, told of the vigor and impetuousness which—Ruth knew—were his.</p> - -<p>He had a clear, dark skin; his hair and brows were dark; his eyes, -blue and observant and interested. He had the firm, determined chin -of a fighter; his mouth was pleasant and likable. He was younger -looking than his pictures had made him appear; not younger than his -age, which Ruth knew was twenty-four. Indeed, he looked older than -four and twenty; yet one could not say that he looked two years -older or five or ten; the maturity which war had brought Gerry Hull -was not the sort which one could reckon in years. It made one—at -least it made Ruth—pulse all at once with amazing feeling for him, -with a strange mixture of anger that such a boy must have -experienced that which had so seared his soul, and of pride in him -that he had sought the experience. He was a little excited now at -being home again, Ruth thought, in this city where his grandfather -had made his fortune, where his father had died and where he, -himself, had spent his boyhood; he turned to point out something to -the girl who was seated beside him; so Ruth gazed at her and -recognized her, too. She was Lady Agnes Ertyle, young and slight and -very lovely with her brown hair and gray eyes and fair, English -complexion and straight, pure features. She had something too of -that maturity, not of years, which Gerry Hull had; she was a little -tired and not excited as was he. But for all that, she was beautiful -and very young and not at all a strange creation in spite of her -title and in spite of all that her family—her father and her -brothers and she herself—had done in Belgium and in France. Indeed, -she was only a girl of twenty-two or three. So Ruth quite forgot -herself in the feeling of rebuke which this view of Gerry Hull and -Lady Agnes brought to her. They were not much older or intrinsically -different from herself and they had already done so much; and -she—nothing!</p> - -<p>She was so close to them that they had to observe her; and the -English girl nodded to her friendlily and a little surprised. Gerry -Hull seemed not surprised; but he did not nod; he just gazed back at -her.</p> - -<p>“What ought I be doing?” Ruth heard her voice appealing to them.</p> - -<p>Lady Agnes Ertyle attempted no reply to this extraordinary query; -but Gerry Hull’s eyes were studying her and he seemed, in some way, -to understand her perplexity and dismay.</p> - -<p>“Anyone can trust you to find out!” he replied to her aloud, yet as -if in comment to himself rather than in answer to her. The car moved -and left Ruth with that—with Gerry Hull’s assurance to himself that -she could be trusted to discover what she should do. She did not -completely understand what he meant; for she did not know what he -had been thinking when she suddenly thought out aloud before him and -surprised him into doing the same. Nevertheless this brief encounter -stirred and stimulated her; she could not meekly return to her room -after this; so, when the crowd broke up, she went over to State -Street.</p> - -<p>The wide, wind-swept way, busy and bleak below the towering sheer of -the great department stores, the hotels and office buildings on -either hand seemed to Ruth never so sordid and self-concerned as -upon this morning. Here and there a flag flapped from a rope -stretched across the street or from a pole pointing obliquely to the -sky; but these merely acknowledged formal recognition of a state of -war; they were not symbols of any evident performance of act of -defense. The people who passed either entirely ignored these flags -or noticed them dully, without the slightest show of feeling. Many -of these people, as Ruth knew, must have sons or brothers in the -training camps; a few might possess sons in the regiments already -across the water; but if Ruth observed any of these, she was unable -to distinguish them this morning from the throng of the indifferent -going about their private and petty preoccupations with complete -engrossment. Likewise was she powerless to discriminate those—not -few in number—who mingled freely in the groups passing under the -flags but who gazed up, not with true indifference, but with hotly -hostile reactions.</p> - -<p>The great majority even of the so-called Germans in Chicago were -loyal to America, Ruth knew; but from the many hundred thousand who, -before the American declaration of war, had sympathized with and -supported the cause of the Fatherland, there were thousands now who -had become only more fervent and reckless in their allegiance to -Germany since the United States had joined its enemies—thousands who -put the advantage of the Fatherland above every individual -consideration and who, unable to espouse their cause now openly, -took to clandestine schemes of ugly and treacherous conception. -Thought of them came to Ruth as she passed two men speaking in low -tones to each other, speaking in English but with marked Teutonic -accent; they stared at her sharply and with a different scrutiny -from that which men ordinarily gave when estimating Ruth’s face and -figure. One of them seemed about to speak to her; but, glancing at -the other people on the walk, he instantly reconsidered and passed -by with his companion. Ruth flushed and hurried on down the street -until suddenly she realized that one of the men who had stared at -her, had passed her and was walking ahead of her, glancing back.</p> - -<p>She halted, then, a little excited and undecided what was best to -do. The man went on, evidently not venturing the boldness of -stopping, too; and while Ruth remained undecided, a street beggar -seized the opportunity of offering her his wares.</p> - -<p>This man was a cripple who, in spite of the severe cold of the -morning, was seated on the walk with his crutches before him; he -pretended to be a pencil vendor and displayed in his mittened hand -an open box half full of pencils; and he had a pile of unopened -boxes at his side. He had taken station at that particular spot on -State Street where most people must pass on their way to and from -the chief department stores; but his trade evidently had been so -slack this morning that he felt need of more aggressive mendicancy. -He scrambled a few yards up the walk to where Ruth had halted and, -gazing up at her, he jerked the edge of her coat.</p> - -<p>“Buy a pencil, lady?”</p> - -<p>Ruth looked down at the man, who was very cold and ill-dressed and -pitiful; she took a dime from her purse and proffered it to him. He -gazed up at her gratefully and with keen, questioning eyes; and, -instead of taking a pencil from his open box, he picked up one of -the unopened boxes which he had carried with him.</p> - -<p>“Take a box, lady,” he pleaded, squirming with a painful effort -which struck a pang of pity through Ruth; it made her think, not -alone of his crippled agony, but the pain of the thousands—of the -millions from the battle fields.</p> - -<p>Ruth returned her dime to her purse and took out a dollar bill; the -beggar thrust the mittened fingers of his left hand between his -teeth, jerked off the ragged mitten and grabbed the dollar bill.</p> - -<p>“That pays for two boxes,” he said, gazing again up at Ruth keenly.</p> - -<p>“I’ll take two,” Ruth said, accepting the sale which the man had -forced rather than deciding it herself.</p> - -<p>He selected two boxes from the pile at his side and, glancing at her -face sharply once more, he handed her the boxes and thanked her. She -thrust the boxes into her muff and hurried on.</p> - -<p>When she realized the strangeness of this transaction a few moments -later, it seemed to have been wholly due to the beggar’s having -taken advantage of her excitement after meeting Gerry Hull and her -uneasiness at being followed by the German. She had no use for two -boxes of cheap pencils and she could not afford to give a dollar to -a street cripple who probably was an impostor. She felt that she had -acted quite crazily; now she had to take a North State Street car to -return to her room.</p> - -<p>She had been saving, out of her money which she kept for herself, a -ridiculous little fund to enable her perhaps to take advantage of a -chance to “do” something some day; now because Lieutenant Hull had -spoken kindly to her, she had flung away a dollar. She tried to keep -her thought from her foolishness; and she succeeded in this readily -by reviewing all the slight incident of her meeting with Gerry Hull. -She had known something about him ever since she was a little girl, -and pictures of him—a little boy with his grandfather—and articles -about his grandfather and about him, too, appeared in the Chicago -newspaper which her father read. Ruth could recall her father -telling her about the great Andrew Hull, how he had come to Chicago -as a poor boy and had made himself one of the greatest men in the -industrial life of the nation; how he owned land and city buildings -and great factories and railroads; and the reason that the -newspapers so often printed the picture of the little boy was -because some day he would own them all.</p> - -<p>And Ruth knew that this had come true; and that the little boy, -whose bold, likeable face had looked out upon her from the pictures; -the tall, handsome, athletic and reckless youth who had gone to -school in the East and, later, in England had become the possessor -of great power and wealth in Chicago but instead of being at all -spoiled by it, he was a clean, brave young man—a soldier having -offered himself and having fought in the most perilous of all -services and having fought well; a soldier who was a little flushed -and excited about being home again among his people and who had -spoken friendlily to her.</p> - -<p>Ruth reached her room, only remembering the pencil boxes when she -dropped them from her muff upon her table. The solid sound they -made—not rattling as pencils should—caused her to tear the pasted -paper from about one box. She had bought not even pencils but only -boxes packed with paper. Now she had the cover off and was staring -at the contents. A new fifty dollar bank note was on top. Underneath -that was another; below that, another—others. They made a packet -enclosed in a strip such as banks use and this was denominated -$1,000.00. There were twenty fifty-dollar notes in this packet.</p> - -<p>Ruth lifted it out; she rubbed her eyes and lifted out another -packet labeled one thousand dollars made up of ten bills of one -hundred dollars each; on the bottom were five one hundred dollar -notes, not fastened together. The box held nothing else.</p> - -<p>Her pulses pounded and beat in her head; her hands touching the -money went hot, went cold. This money was real; but her obtaining it -must be a mistake. The box must have been the beggar’s bank which he -had kept beside him; therefore his money had no meaning for her. But -now the cripple’s insistence upon halting her, his keen observation -of her, his slowness at last to make the sale, stirred swift -instincts of doubt. She seized and tore open the other box which she -had bought.</p> - -<p>No pencils in it; nor money. It held printed or engraved papers, -folded and refolded tightly. One huge paper was on top, displaying -bright red stamps and a ribbon and seals. This was an official -government document; a passport to France! The picture of the holder -was pasted upon a corner, stamped with the seal of the United -States; and it was her picture! In strange clothes; but herself!</p> - -<p>For the instant, as things swam before her in her excitement, there -came to Ruth the Cinderella wonder which a girl, who has been really -a little child once, can never quite cease to believe—the wonder of -a wish by magic made true. The pencils in the beggar’s boxes had -been changed by her purchase of them to money for her and a passport -to France. And for this magic, Gerry Hull was in some way -responsible. She had appealed to him; he had spoken to her and -thenceforth all things she touched turned to fairy gold—or better -than gold; American bank notes and a passport to France!</p> - -<p>Then the moment of Ruth, the little girl and the dreamer, was gone; -and Ruth, the business woman competent to earn twenty-five dollars a -week, examined what she held in her hand. As she made out the papers -more clearly, her heart only beat faster and harder; her hands went -moist and trembled and her breath was pent in by presence of the -great challenge which had come to her, which was not fairy at all -but very real and mortal and which put at stake her life and honor -but which offered her something to “do” beyond even her dreams. For -the picture upon the passport was not of her but only of a girl very -much like her; the name, as inscribed in the body of the passport -and as written in hand across the picture and under the seal of the -United States, was not her own but of someone named Cynthia Gail; -and along with the passport was an unattached paper covered with -small, distinct handwriting of a man relating who Cynthia Gail was -and what the recipient of this money and this passport was expected -to do. This paper like the passport was complete and untorn. There -was besides a page of correspondence paper, of good quality, written -upon both sides in the large, free handwriting of a girl—the same -hand which had signed the photograph and the passport, “Cynthia -Gail.”</p> - -<p>Ruth read these papers and she went to her door and locked it, she -went to her window and peered cautiously out. If anyone had followed -her, he was not now in evidence. The old, dilapidated street was -deserted as usual at this time and on such a day except for a -delivery truck speeding past, a woman or two on the way to the car -line, and a few pallid children venturing out in the cold. Listening -for sounds below, Ruth heard no unusual movements; so she drew far -back from the window with the money and with the passport and with -the explanatory paper and the letter which she laid before her and -examined most carefully again.</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chII' title="II. The Wand of War"> - <span style='font-size:1.1em;'>CHAPTER II</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.0em; font-variant:small-caps;'>THE WAND OF WAR</span> -</h2> - -<p>The man who had formed the small, distinct characters covering the -paper of instructions had written in English; but while he was quite -familiar with English script, it was evident that he had written -with the deliberate pains of a person who realizes the need of -differentiating his letters from the formation natural to him. That -formation, clearly, was German script. Like everyone else, Ruth knew -German families; and, like many other American girls who had been in -high schools before the outbreak of the war, she had chosen German -for a modern language course. Indeed, she had learned German well -enough so that when confronted by the question on her War -Registration card, <i>What foreign languages do you read well?</i> she -had written, <i>German</i>.</p> - -<p>She had no difficulty, therefore, in recognizing from the too broad -tops of the a’s, the too pointed c’s and the loops which twice -crossed the t’s that the writer had been educated first to write -German. He had failed nowhere to carefully and accurately write the -English form of the letters for which the German form was very -different, such as k and r and s; it was only in the characters -where the two scripts were similar that his care had been less.</p> - -<div class='bq'> -<p>You are (he had written) the daughter of Charles Farwell Gail, a -dry-goods merchant of Decatur, Illinois. Your father and mother—ages -48 and 45—are living; you have one older brother, Charles, now -twenty-six years old who quarreled with his father four years ago -and went away and has not been heard from. The family believe that -he entered the war in some capacity years ago; if so, he probably -was killed for he was of reckless disposition. You do not write to -him, of course; but in your letters home you refer to being always -on watch for word from Charles. You were twenty-four years old on -November 17. You have no sisters but one younger brother, Frank, 12 -on the tenth of May, who is a boy scout; inform him of all boy-scout -matters in your letters. Your other immediate family is a sister of -your mother now living with your parents; she is a widow, Mrs. -Howard Grange, maiden name Cynthia Gifford. You were named for her; -she has a chronic ailment—diabetes. You write to her; you always -inquire of her condition in letters to your parents. Your closest -girl friend is Cora Tresdale, La Salle, Illinois, who was your -roommate at Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass.; you were both class -of 1915; you write to her occasionally. You recently have been much -interested in 2nd Lieutenant George A. Byrne, from Decatur, now at -Camp Grant; he saw you in Chicago this past Saturday. Probably you -are engaged to him; in any case, your status with him will be better -defined by letter which will arrive for you at the Hotel Champlain, -this city, Room 347.</p> -<p>It is essential that you at once go to hotel and continue your -identity there. Immediately answer by telegram any important inquiry -for you; immediately answer all letters. Buy a typewriter of -traveling design and do all correspondence on that, saying that you -are taking it up for convenience. Your signature is on passport; -herewith also a portion of letter with your writing. So far as -known, you do not sign nicknames, except to your father to whom you -are “Thia.” Mail arriving for you, or to arrive at hotel, together -with possessions in room will inform you of your affairs more fully. -So far as now known you have no intimate friends in Chicago; you are -to start Thursday evening for Hoboken where you report Saturday -morning to Mrs. Donald G. Gresham for work in the devastated -districts in France, where you will observe all desired matters, -particularly in regard to number, dispositions, personnel, equipment -and morale of arriving American forces; reporting. If and when it -proves impractical to forward proper reports, you will make report -in person, via Switzerland; apply for passport to Lucerne.</p> -</div> - -<p>With this, the connected writing abruptly ended; there was no -signature and no notation except at the bottom of the sheet was an -asterisk referring to an asterisk before the first mention of -“mother.” This note supplied, “Mother’s maiden name, Julia -Trowbridge Gifford,” and also the street address in Decatur. Below -that was the significant addenda:</p> - -<div class='bq'> -<p>Cynthia Gail killed in Sunday night wreck; identification now -extremely improbable; but watch papers for news. No suspicion yet at -home or hotel; <i>but you must appear at once and answer any inquiry</i>.</p> -</div> - -<p>This last command, which was a repetition, was emphatically -underlined. The page of the letter in Cynthia Gail’s handwriting was -addressed to her mother and was largely a list of clothing—chemises, -waists, stockings, and other articles—which she had bought in -Chicago and charged to her father’s account at two department -stores. A paragraph confided to her mother her feeling of -insignificance at the little part she might play in the war, though -it had seemed so big before she started away:</p> - - -<div class='bq'> -<p>Yet no one knows what lies before one; even I may be given my great -moment to grasp!</p> -</div> - -<p>The letter was unfinished; Cynthia Gail evidently had been carrying -it with her to complete and mail later when she was killed.</p> - -<p>Ruth placed it under her pillow with the other paper and the -passport and the money; she unlocked her door and went out, locking -it behind her; descending to the first floor, she obtained the -yesterday’s paper and brought it back to her room. She found readily -the account of a wreck on Sunday evening when a train had crashed -through a street car. It had proved very difficult to identify -certain of the victims; and one had not been identified at all; she -had been described only as a young girl, well dressed, fur toque, -blue coat with dark fur collar.</p> - -<p>The magic of this money and the passport had faded quite away; the -chain of vital, mortal occurrences which had brought them to Ruth -Alden was becoming evident.</p> - -<p>There had been, first of all, an American girl named Cynthia Gail of -Decatur, Illinois, young like Ruth but without responsibilities, -loyal and ardent to play her part in the war. She had applied for -overseas work; the government therefore had investigated her, -approved her and issued her a passport and permitted her to make all -arrangements for the journey to France and for work there. She had -left her home in Decatur and had come alone, probably, to Chicago, -arriving not later than Saturday. She apparently had been alone in -the city on Sunday evening after Lieutenant George Byrne had -returned to Camp Grant; also it was fairly certain that she had no -intimate friends in Chicago as she had been stopping at a hotel. On -Sunday evening she had been on the car which was struck by the -train.</p> - -<p>This much was positive; the next circumstances had more of -conjecture; but Ruth could reason them out.</p> - -<p>Someone among those who first went to the wreck found Cynthia Gail -dead and found her passport upon her. This person might have been a -German agent who was observing her; much more probably he was simply -a German sympathizer who was sufficiently intelligent to appreciate -at once the value of his find. At any rate, someone removed the -passport and letter and other possessions which would identify -Cynthia Gail; and that someone either acted promptly for himself and -for Germany or brought his discoveries to others who acted very -energetically. For they must immediately have got in touch with -people in Decatur who supplied them with the information on the page -of instructions; and they also must have made investigation of -Cynthia Gail’s doings in Chicago.</p> - -<p>The Germans thereupon found that they possessed not merely a -passport but a most valuable post and an identity to use for their -own purposes. If they could at once substitute one of their own -people for Cynthia Gail—before inquiry for Cynthia Gail would be -made or knowledge of her loss arise—this substitute would be able to -proceed to France without serious suspicion; she would be able to -move about with considerable freedom, probably, in the districts of -France where Americans were holding the lines and could gather and -forward information of all sorts of the greatest value to the -Germans. They simply must find a German girl near enough like -Cynthia Gail and clever and courageous enough to forge her -signature, assume her place in her family, and in general play her -rôle.</p> - -<p>It was plain that the Germans who obtained the passport knew of some -German girl upon whom they could depend; but they could not—or did -not dare to attempt to—communicate directly with her. Ruth knew -vaguely that hundreds of Germans, suspected of hostile activities, -silently had disappeared. She knew that the American secret service -constantly was causing the arrest of others and keeping many more -under observation. It was certain, therefore, that communication -between enemy agents in Chicago must have been becoming difficult -and dangerous; moreover, Ruth had read that it was a principle of -the German spy organization to keep its agents ignorant of the -activities of others in the same organization; so it seemed quite -probable that the people who had possession of Cynthia Gail’s -passport knew that there was a German girl in the city who might -play Cynthia’s part but that they could not locate her. Yet they -were obliged to find her, and to do it quickly, so that she could -take up the rôle of Cynthia Gail before inquiries would be made.</p> - -<p>What better way of finding a girl in Chicago than posting yourself -as a beggar on State Street between the great stores? It was indeed -almost certain that if the girl they sought was anywhere in the -city, sooner or later she would pass that spot. Obviously the two -Germans who had mixed with the crowd on State Street also had been -searching for their German confederate; they had mistaken Ruth for -her; and one of them had somehow signaled the beggar to accost her.</p> - -<p>This had come to Ruth, therefore, not because she was chosen by -fate; it simply had happened to her, instead of to another of the -hundreds of girls who had passed down State Street that morning, -because she chanced to possess a certain sort of hair and eyes, -shape of nose and chin, and way of carrying her head not unique at -all but, in fact, very like two other girls—one who had been loyal -and eager as she, but who now lay dead and another girl who had been -sought by enemy agents for their work, but who had not been found -and who, probably, would not now be found by them.</p> - -<p>For, after giving the boxes to Ruth, the German who played the -beggar would not search further; that delivery of the passport and -the orders to her was proof that he believed she was the girl he -sought. She had only to follow the orders given and she would be -accepted by other German agents as one of themselves! She would -pretend to them that she was going as a German spy into France in -order that she could go, an American spy, into Germany! For that was -what her orders read.</p> - -<p>“You will report in person via Switzerland!” they said.</p> - -<p>What a tremendous thing had been given her to do! What risks to run; -what plans to make; what stratagems to scheme and to outwit! Upon -her—her who an hour ago had been among the most futile and -inconsiderable in all the world of war—now might hang the fate of -the great moment if she did not fail, if she dared to do without -regard to herself to the uttermost! She must do it alone, if she was -to do it at all! She could not tell anyone! For the Germans who had -entrusted this to her might be watching her. If she went to the -American Secret Service, the Germans almost surely would know; and -that would end any chance of their continuing to believe her their -agent. No; if she was to do it, she must do it of herself; and she -was going to do it!</p> - -<p>This money, which she recounted, freed her at once from all bonds -here. She speculated, of course, about whose it had been. She was -almost sure it had not been Cynthia Gail’s; for a young girl upon an -honest errand would not have carried so great an amount in cash. No; -Ruth had heard of the lavishness with which the Germans spent money -in America and of the extravagant enterprises they hazarded in the -hope of serving their cause in some way; and she was certain that -this had been German money and that its association with the -passport had not begun until the passport fell into hostile hands. -The money, consequently, was Ruth’s spoil from the enemy; she would -send home two thousand dollars to free her from her obligation to -her family for more than two years while she would keep the -remainder for her personal expenses.</p> - -<p>The passport too was recovered from the enemy; yet it had belonged -to that girl, very like Ruth, who lay dead and unrecognized since -this had been taken from her. There came to Ruth, accordingly, one -of those weak, peacetime shocks of horror at the idea of leaving -that girl to be put away in a nameless grave. As if one more -nameless grave, amid the myriads of the war, made a difference!</p> - -<p>Ruth gazed into the eyes of the girl of the picture; and that girl’s -words, which had seemed only a commonplace of the letter, spoke -articulate with living hope. “Even I may be given my great moment to -grasp!”</p> - -<p>What could she care for a name on her grave?</p> - -<p>“You can’t be thinking of so small and silly a thing for me!” the -girl of the picture seemed to say. “When you and I may save perhaps -a thousand, ten thousand, a million men! I left home to serve; you -know my dreams, for you have dreamed them too; and, more than you, I -had opportunity offered to do. And instead, almost before I had -started, I was killed stupidly and, it seemed for nothing. It almost -happened that—instead of serving—I was about to become the means of -betrayal of our armies. But you came to save me from that; you came -to do for me, and for yourself, more than either of us dreamed to -do. Be sure of me, as I would be sure of you in my place! Save me, -with you, for our great moment! Carry me on!”</p> - -<p>Ruth put the picture down. “We’ll go on together!” she made her -compact with the soul of Cynthia Gail.</p> - -<p>She was glad that, before acting upon her decision, she had no time -to dwell upon the consequences. She must accept her rôle at once or -forever forsake it. Indeed, she might already be too late. She went -to her washbowl and bathed; she redid her hair, more like the girl -in the picture. The dress which she had been wearing was her best -for the street so she put it on again. She put on her hat and coat; -she separated two hundred dollars from the rest of the money and put -it in her purse; the balance, together with the passport and the -page of Cynthia Gail’s letter, she secured in her knitting bag. The -sheet of orders with the information about Cynthia Gail gave her -hesitation. She reread it again carefully; and she was almost -certain that she could remember everything; but, being informed of -so little, she must be certain to have that exact. So she reached -for her leaflet of instructions for knitting helmets, socks, and -sweaters, and she wrote upon the margin, in almost imperceptible -strokes, shorthand curls and dashes, condensing the related facts -about Cynthia Gail. She put this in her bag, destroyed the original -and, taking up her bag, she went out.</p> - -<p>Every few moments as she proceeded down the dun and drab street, in -nowise changed from the half hour before, she pressed the bag -against her side to feel the hardness of the packets pinned in the -bottom; she needed this feelable proof to assure her that this last -half hour had not been all her fantasy but that truly the wand of -war, which she had seen to lift so many out of the drudge of mean, -mercenary tasks, had touched her too.</p> - -<p>She hailed a taxicab as soon as she was out of sight of the boarding -house and directed it to the best downtown store where she bought, -with part of the two hundred dollars, such a fur toque and such a -blue coat with a fur collar as she supposed Cynthia Gail might have -possessed. She had qualms while she was paying for them; she seemed -to be spending a beggar’s money, given her by mistake. She wore the -new toque and the coat, instructing that her old garments be sent, -without name, to the war-relief shop.</p> - -<p>Out upon the street again, the fact that she had spent the money -brought her only exultation; it had begun to commit her by deed, as -well as by determination and had begun to muster her in among those -bound to abandon all advantage—her security, her life—in the great -cause of her country. It had seemed to her, before, the highest and -most wonderful cause for which a people had ever aroused; and now, -as she could begin to think herself serving that cause, what might -happen to her had become the tiniest and meanest consideration.</p> - -<p>She took another taxicab for the Hotel Champlain. She knew this for -a handsome and fashionable hotel on the north side near the lake; -she had never been in such a hotel as a guest. Now she must remember -that she had had a room there since last week and she had been away -from it since Sunday night, visiting, and she had kept the room -rather than go to the trouble of giving it up. When she approached -the hotel, she leaned forward in her seat and glanced at herself in -the little glass fixed in one side of the cab. She saw that she was -not trembling outwardly and that she had good color—too much rather -than too little; and she looked well in the new, expensive coat and -toque.</p> - -<p>When the cab stopped and the hotel doorman came out, she gave him -money to pay the driver and she went at once into the hotel, passing -many people who were sitting about or standing.</p> - -<p>The room-clerk at the desk looked up at her, as a room-clerk gazes -at a good looking and well-dressed girl who is a guest.</p> - -<p>“Key, please,” she said quietly. She had to risk her voice without -knowing how Cynthia Gail had spoken. That was one thing which the -Germans had forgotten to ascertain—or had been unable to -discover—for her. But the clerk noticed nothing strange.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Miss Gail,” he recognized her, and he turned to take the key -out of box 347. “Mail too, Miss Gail?”</p> - -<p>“Please.”</p> - -<p>He handed Ruth three letters, two postmarked Decatur and one -Rockford, and also the yellow envelope of a telegram. He turned back -to the box and fumbled for a card.</p> - -<p>“There was a gentleman here for you ’bout half an hour ago, Miss -Gail,” the clerk recollected. “He waited a while but I guess he’s -gone. He left this card for you.”</p> - -<p>Ruth was holding the letters and also the telegram unopened; she had -not cared to inquire into their contents when in view of others. It -was far safer to wait until she could be alone before investigating -matters which might further confuse her. So she was very glad that -the man who had been “here for her” was not present at that instant; -certainly she required all the advantage which delay and the mail -and the contents of Cynthia Gail’s room could give her.</p> - -<p>She had thought, of course, of the possibility of someone awaiting -her; and she had recognized three contingencies in that case. A man -who called for her might be a friend or a relative of Cynthia Gail; -this, though difficult enough, would be easiest and least dangerous -of all. The man might be a United States agent aware that Cynthia -Gail was dead, that her passport had fallen into hostile hands; he -therefore would have come to take her as an enemy spy with a stolen -passport. The man might be a German agent sent there to aid her or -give her further orders or information, if the Germans still were -satisfied that they had put the passport into proper hands; if they -were not—that is, if they had learned that the beggar had made a -mistake—then the man might be a German who had come to lure her away -to recover the passport and punish her.</p> - -<p>The man’s card, with his name—Mr. Hubert Lennon, engraved in the -middle—told nothing more about him.</p> - -<p>“I will be in my room,” Ruth said to the clerk, when she glanced up -from the card. “If Mr. Lennon returns or anyone else calls, -telephone me.”</p> - -<p>She moved toward the elevator as quickly as possible; but the -room-clerk’s eyes already were attracted toward a number of men -entering from the street.</p> - -<p>“He’s not gone, Miss Gail! Here he is now!” the clerk called.</p> - -<p>Ruth pretended not to hear; but no elevator happened to be waiting -into which she could escape.</p> - -<p>“Here’s the gentleman for you!” a bellboy announced to Ruth so that -she had to turn and face then and there the gentleman who had been -waiting for her.</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chIII' title="III. The New Rôle"> - <span style='font-size:1.1em;'>CHAPTER III</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.0em;'>THE NEW RÔLE</span> -</h2> - -<p>The man who advanced from the group which had just entered the -hotel, appeared to be about thirty years old; he was tall and -sparely built and stooped very slightly as though in youth he had -outgrown his strength and had never quite caught up. He had a -prominent nose and a chin which, at first glance, seemed forceful; -but that impression altered at once to a feeling that here was a man -of whom something might have been made but had not. He was not at -all dissolute or unpleasant looking; his mouth was sensitive, almost -shy, with only lines of amiability about it; his eyes, which looked -smaller than they really were because of the thick lenses of his -glasses, were gray and good natured and observant. His hair was -black and turning gray—prematurely beyond doubt. It was chiefly the -grayness of his hair, indeed, which made Ruth suppose him as old as -thirty. He wore a dark overcoat and gray suit—good clothes, so good -that one noticed them last—the kind of clothes which Sam Hilton -always thought he was buying and never procured. He pulled off a -heavy glove to offer a big, boyish hand.</p> - -<p>“How do you do, Cy—Miss Gail?” he greeted her. He was quite sure of -her but doubtful as to use of her given name.</p> - -<p>“Hubert Lennon!” Ruth exclaimed, giving her hand to his grasp—a -nice, pleased, and friendly grasp. She had ventured that, whoever he -was, he had known Cynthia Gail long ago but had not seen her -recently; not for several years, perhaps, when she was so young a -girl that everyone called her Cynthia. Her venture went well.</p> - -<p>She was able to learn from him, without his suspecting that she had -not known, that she had an engagement with him for the afternoon; -they were to go somewhere—she could not well inquire where—for some -event of distinct importance for which she was supposed to be -“ready.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not ready, I’m sorry to say,” Ruth seized swiftly the chance -for fleeing to refuge in “her” room. “I’ve just come in, you know. -But I’ll dress as quickly as I can.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll be right here,” he agreed.</p> - -<p>She stepped into a waiting elevator and drew back into the corner; -two men, who talked together, followed her in and the car started -upwards. If the Germans had sent someone to the hotel to observe her -when she appeared to take the place of Cynthia Gail, that person -pretty clearly was not Hubert Lennon, Ruth thought; but she could -not be sure of these two men. They were usual looking, middle-aged -men of the successful type who gazed at her more than casually; -neither of them called a floor until after Ruth asked for the third; -then the other said, “Fourth,” sharply while the man who remained -silent left the elevator after Ruth. She was conscious that he came -behind her while she followed the room numbers along the hallway -until she found the door of 347; he passed her while she was opening -it. She entered and, putting the key on the inside, she locked -herself in, pressing close to the panel to hear whether the man -returned. But she heard only a rapping at a door farther on; the -man’s voice saying, “I, Adele;” then a woman’s and a child’s voices.</p> - -<p>“Nerves!” Ruth reproached herself. “You have to begin better than -this.”</p> - -<p>She was in a large and well-furnished bedroom; the bed and bureau -and dressing table were set in a sort of alcove, half partitioned -off from the end of the room where was a lounge with a lamp and a -writing desk. These were hotel furniture, of course; the other -articles—the pretty, dainty toilet things upon the dressing table, -the dresses and the suit upon the hangers in the closet, the -nightdress and kimono upon the hooks, the boots on the rack, the -waists, stockings, undergarments, and all the other girl’s things -laid in the drawers—were now, of necessity, Ruth’s. There was a new -steamer trunk upon a low stand beyond the bed; the trunk had been -closed after being unpacked and the key had been left in it. A -small, brown traveling bag—also new—stood on the floor beside it. -Upon the table, beside a couple of books and magazines, was a pile -of department-store packages—evidently Cynthia Gail’s purchases -which she had listed in her letter to her mother. The articles, -having been bought on Saturday, had been delivered on Monday and -therefore had merely been placed in the room.</p> - -<p>Ruth could give these no present concern; she could waste no time -upon examination of the clothes in the closet or in the drawers. She -bent at once before the mirror of the dressing table where Cynthia -Gail had stuck in two kodak pictures and two cards at the edge of -the glass. The pictures were both of the same young man—a tall, -straight, and strongly built boy in officer’s uniform; probably -Lieutenant Byrne, Ruth thought; at least he was not Hubert Lennon; -and the cards in the glass betrayed nothing about him, either; both, -plainly, were “reminder” cards, one having “Sunday, 4:30!” written -triumphantly across it, the other, “Mrs. Malcolm Corliss, Superior -9979.”</p> - -<p>Ruth knew—who in Chicago did not know?—of Mrs. Malcolm Corliss, -particularly since America entered the war. Ruth knew that the -Superior number was a telephone probably in Mrs. Corliss’ big home -on the Lake Shore Drive. Ruth picked up the leather portfolio lying -upon the dressing table; opening it, she faced four portrait -photographs; an alert, able and kindly looking man of about fifty; a -woman a few years younger, not very unlike Ruth’s own mother and -with similarly sweet eyes and a similar abundance of beautiful hair. -These photographs had been but recently taken. The third was several -years old and was of a handsome, vigorous, defiant looking boy of -twenty-one or two; the fourth was of a cunning, bold little youth of -twelve in boy-scout uniform. Ruth had no doubt that these were -Cynthia Gail’s family; she was very glad to have that sight of them; -yet they told her nothing of use in the immediate emergency. Her -hand fell to the drawer of the dresser where, a moment ago, Ruth had -seen a pile of letters; she recognized that she must examine -everything; yet it was easier for her to open first the letters -which had never become quite Cynthia Gail’s—the three letters and -the dispatch which the clerk had given Ruth.</p> - -<p>She opened the telegram first and found it was from her father. She -was thinking of herself, not as Ruth Alden, but as actually being -Cynthia Gail now. It was a great advantage to be able to fancy and -to dream; she <i>was</i> Cynthia Gail; she <i>must</i> be Cynthia henceforth -or she could not continue what she was doing even here alone by -herself; and surely she could not keep up before others unless, in -every relation, she thought of herself as that other girl.</p> - -<div class='bq'> -<p style='text-indent:0'>Letter received; it’s like you, but by all -means go ahead; I’ll back you. Love.</p> -<div style='text-align:right; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom:0.5em'> - <div style='display:inline-block; text-align:left;'> - <div class='cbline'>Father.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>That told nothing except that she had, in some recent letter, -suggested an evidently adventurous deviation from her first plan.</p> - -<p>The first letter from Decatur which Cynthia Gail now opened was from -her mother—a sweet, concerned motherly letter of the sort which that -girl, who had been Ruth Alden, well knew and which made her cry a -little. It told absolutely nothing about anyone whom Cynthia might -meet in Chicago except the one line, “I’m very glad that Mrs. -Malcolm Corliss has telephoned to you.” The second letter from -Decatur, written a day earlier than the other, was from her father; -from this Cynthia gained chiefly the information—which the Germans -had not supplied her—that her father had accompanied her to Chicago, -established her at the hotel and then been called back home by -business. He had been “sorry to leave her alone” but of course she -was meeting small risks compared to those she was to run. The letter -from Rockford, which had arrived only that morning, was from -George—that meant George Byrne. She had been engaged to him, it -appeared; but they had quarreled on Sunday; he felt wholly to blame -for it now; he was very, very sorry; he loved her and could not give -her up. Would she not write him, please, as soon as she could bring -herself to?</p> - -<p>The letter was all about themselves—just of her and of him. No one -else at all was mentioned. The letters in the drawer—eight in -number—were all from him; they mentioned, incidentally, many people -but all apparently of Decatur; there was no reference of any sort to -anyone named Hubert or Lennon.</p> - -<p>She returned the letters to their place in the drawer and laid with -them those newly received. The mail, if it gave her small help, at -least had failed to present any immediately difficult problem of its -own. There was apparently no anxiety at home about her; she safely -could delay responding until later in the afternoon; but she could -not much longer delay rejoining Hubert Lennon or sending him some -excuse; and offering excuse, when knowing nothing about the -engagement to which she was committed, was perhaps more dangerous -than boldly appearing where she was expected. The Germans had told -her that they believed she had no close friends in Chicago; and, so -far as she had added to that original information, it seemed -confirmed.</p> - -<p>The telephone bell rang and gave her a jump; it was not the -suddenness of the sound, but the sign that even there when she was -alone a call might make demand which she could not satisfy. She -calmed herself with an effort before lifting the receiver and -replying.</p> - -<p>“Cynthia?” a woman’s voice asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said.</p> - -<p>“It’s a large afternoon affair, dear,” the voice said easily. “But -quite wartime. I’d wear the yellow dress.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, I will,” Cynthia said, and the woman hung up.</p> - -<p>That shocked Cynthia back to Ruth again; she stood in the center of -the room, turning about slowly and with muscles pulling with queer, -jerky little tugs. The message had purported to be a friendly -telephone call from some woman who knew her intimately; but Ruth -quickly estimated that that was merely what the message was meant to -appear. For if the woman really were so intimate a friend of Cynthia -Gail, she would not have made so short and casual a conversation -with a girl whom she could not have seen or communicated with since -Sunday. No; it was plain that the Germans again were aiding her; -plain that they had learned—perhaps from Hubert Lennon waiting for -her in the hotel lobby—about her afternoon engagement; plain, too, -that they were ordering her to go.</p> - -<p>A new and beautiful yellow dress, suitable for afternoon wear, was -among the garments in the closet; there was an underskirt and -stockings and everything else. Ruth was Cynthia again as she slipped -quickly out of her street dress, took off shoes and stockings and -redressed completely. She found a hat which evidently was to be worn -with the yellow dress. So completely was she Cynthia now, as she -bent for a final look in the glass, that she did not think that she -looked better than Ruth Alden ever had; she wondered, instead, -whether she looked as well as she should. She found no coat which -seemed distinctly for the afternoon; so she put on the coat which -she had bought. She carried her knitting bag with her as before—it -was quite an advantage to have a receptacle as capacious as a -knitting bag which she could keep with her no matter where she went. -Descending to the ground floor, she found about the same number and -about the same sort of people passing back and forth or lounging in -the lobby. Hubert Lennon was there and he placed himself beside her -as she surrendered her room key.</p> - -<p>“You’re perfectly corking, Cynthia!” he admired her, evidently -having decided during his wait that he could say her name.</p> - -<p>Color—the delicate rose blush in her clear skin which Sam Hilton so -greatly liked—deepened on her cheek.</p> - -<p>“All ready now, Hubert,” she said; her use of his name greatly -pleased him and he grasped her arm, unnecessarily, to guide her out.</p> - -<p>“Just a minute,” she hesitated as she approached the telegraph desk. -“I’ve a wire to send to father.”</p> - -<p>The plan had popped out with the impulse which had formed it; she -had had no idea the moment before of telegraphing to Charles Gail. -But now the ecstasy of the daring game—the game beginning here in -small perils, perhaps, but also perhaps in great; the game which was -swiftly to lead, if she could make it lead, across the sea and -through France into Switzerland and then into the land of the enemy -upon the Rhine—had caught her; and she knew instinctively how to -reply to that as yet uncomprehended telegram from her father.</p> - -<p>She reached for the dispatch blanks before she remembered that, -though her handwriting would not be delivered in Decatur, still here -she would be leaving a record in writing which was not like Cynthia -Gail’s. So she merely took up the pen in her gloved fingers and gave -it to Hubert Lennon who had not yet put his gloves on.</p> - -<p>“You write for me, please,” she requested. “Mr. Charles F. Gail,” -she directed and gave the home street number in Decatur. “Thanks for -your wire telling me to go ahead. I knew you’d back me. Love. Thia.”</p> - -<p>“What?” Lennon said at the last word.</p> - -<p>“Just sign it ‘Thia.’”</p> - -<p>He did so; she charged the dispatch to her room and they went out. -The color was still warm in her face. If one of the men in the lobby -was a German stationed to observe how she did and if he had seen her -start the mistake of writing the telegram, he had seen also an -instant recovery, she thought.</p> - -<p>A large, luxurious limousine, driven by a chauffeur in private -livery, moved up as they came to the curb. When they settled side by -side on the soft cushions, the driver started away to the north -without requiring instructions.</p> - -<p>“You were fifteen years old when I last had a ride with you,” Hubert -obligingly informed her.</p> - -<p>That was nine years ago, in nineteen nine, Cynthia made the mental -note; she had become twenty-four years old instead of twenty-two, -since the morning.</p> - -<p>“But I knew you right away,” he went on. “Aunt Emilie would have -come for you but you see when she telephoned and found you weren’t -in at half-past one, she knew she couldn’t call for you and get to -Mrs. Corliss’ on time. And she’s a stickler for being on time.”</p> - -<p>So it was to Mrs. Corliss’ they were going—to her great home on the -drive. The car was keeping on northward along the snow-banked -boulevard with the white and arctic lake away to the right and, on -the left, the great grounds of Mrs. Potter Palmer’s home.</p> - -<p>“She’d have sent a maid for you,” Hubert explained, “but I said it -was stupid silly to send a maid after a girl who’s going into the -war zone.”</p> - -<p>“I’m glad you came instead for another ride with me,” Cynthia said.</p> - -<p>He reddened with pleasure. In whatever circles he moved, it was -plain he received no great attention from girls.</p> - -<p>“I tried to get into army and navy both, Cynthia,” he blurted, -apropos of nothing except that he seemed to feel that he owed -explanation to her as to why he was not in uniform. “But they turned -me down—eyes. Even the Canadians turned me down. But Aunt Emilie’s -giving an ambulance; and they’re going to let me drive it. They get -under fire sometimes, I hear. On the French front.”</p> - -<p>“They’re often under fire,” Cynthia assured. “A lot of ambulance men -have been killed and wounded; so that’s no slacker service.”</p> - -<p>“Not if you can’t get in anything better,” he said, “but mighty -little beside what Gerry Hull’s been doing.”</p> - -<p>She startled a little. He had spoken Gerry Hull’s name with far less -familiarity than Sam Hilton had uttered it that morning; but Hubert -Lennon’s was with the familiarity of one who knows personally the -man mentioned.</p> - -<p>“You’ve seen him since he’s back?” Cynthia asked. It came to her -suddenly that they—he and she—were going to meet Gerry Hull!</p> - -<p>The car was slowing before the turn in the driveway for Mrs. -Corliss’ city home; a number of cars were ahead and others took line -behind for the <i>porte cochère</i> where guests were entering the house.</p> - -<p>“Yes; I know him pretty well,” Hubert said with a sort of pitiful -pride. He was sensitive to the fact that, when he had spoken of -Gerry Hull, her interest in him had so quickened; but he was quite -unresentful of it. “I’ll see that he knows you, Cynthia,” he -promised.</p> - -<p>She sat quiet, trying to think what to say to Hubert Lennon after -this; but he did not want the talk brought back to himself. He spoke -only of his friend until the man opened the door of the car; the -house door was opened at the same moment; and Cynthia, gathering her -coat about her and clutching close to her knitting bag, stepped out -of the car and into the hall, warm and scented with hot-house -flowers, murmurous with the voices and movement of many people in -the big rooms beyond. A man servant directed her to a room where -maids were in attendance and where she laid off her coat. She had -never in her life been at any affair larger than a wedding or a -reception to a congressman at Onarga; so it was a good deal all at -once to find oneself a guest of Mrs. Corliss’, for it was plain that -this reception was by no means a public affair but that the guests -all had been carefully selected; it was more to be present carrying -a knitting bag (fortunately many others brought knitting bags) in -which were twenty-three hundred dollars and a passport to France; -and something more yet to meet Gerry Hull—or rather, have him meet -you. For when she came out to the hall again, Hubert was waiting for -her.</p> - -<p>“I can’t find Aunt Emilie just now, Cynthia,” he said. “But I’ve -Gerry. There’s no sense in getting into that jam. We’ll go to the -conservatory; and Gerry’ll come there. This way, Cynthia. Quick!”</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chIV' title="IV. At Mrs. Corliss’"> - <span style='font-size:1.1em;'>CHAPTER IV</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.0em;'>AT MRS. CORLISS’</span> -</h2> - -<p>She followed him about the fringes of the groups pressing into the -great front room where a stringed orchestra was starting the first, -glorious notes of the <i>Marseillaise</i>; and suddenly a man’s voice, in -all the power and beauty of the opera singer and with the passion of -a Frenchman singing for his people, burst out with the battle song:</p> - -<div class='poetry-container'> - <div class='poetry'> - <div class='stanza'> - <div class='verse'>Allons, enfants de la Patrie,</div> - <div class='verse'>Le jour de gloire est arrivé!</div> - <div class='verse'>Contre nous de la tyrannie</div> - <div class='verse'>L’étendard sanglant est levé....</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>It lifted her as nothing had ever before. “Go, children of your -country; the day of glory is here! Against us the bloody standard of -tyranny is raised!...”</p> - -<p>She had sung that marvelous hymn of the French since she was a -child; before she had understood it at all, the leap and lilt of the -verse had thrilled her. It had become to her next an historical song -of freedom; when the war started—and America was not in—the song had -ceased to resound from the past. The victory of the French upon the -Marne, the pursuit to the Aisne; then the stand at Verdun gave it -living, vibrant voice. Still it had been a voice calling to others—a -voice which Ruth might hear but to which she might not reply. But -now, as it called to her: “<i>Aux armes!</i>... <i>Marchons! Marchons!</i>...” -she was to march with it!</p> - -<p>The wonder of that made her a little dizzy and set her pulse -fluttering in her throat. The song was finished and she was amid the -long fronds of palms, the hanging vines, and the red of winter roses -in the conservatory. She looked about and discovered Hubert Lennon -guiding Gerry Hull to her.</p> - -<p>“Cynthia, this is Gerry Hull; Gerry, this is Cynthia Gail.”</p> - -<p>He was in his uniform which he had worn in the French service; he -had applied to be transferred from his old escadrille to an American -squadron, Ruth knew; but the transfer was not yet effected. The -ribbons of his decorations—the <i>Croix de Guerre</i>, the <i>Médaille -Militaire</i>, the Cross of the Legion of Honor—ran in a little, -brilliant row across the left breast of his jacket. It bothered him -as her eyes went to them. He would not have sought the display—she -thought—of wearing his decorations here at home; but since he was -appearing in a formal—almost an official function—he had no choice -about it. And she recognized instantly that he had not followed his -friend out of the “jam” of the other rooms to meet her in order to -hear more praise of himself from her.</p> - -<p>He was, indeed, far more interested in her than in himself. “Why, -I’ve met you before, Miss Gail,” he said, and evidently was puzzling -to place her.</p> - -<p>Ruth went warm with pleasure. “I spoke to you on the street—when -your car stopped on Michigan Avenue this morning,” she confessed. -She had not been Cynthia Gail, then; but he could not know that.</p> - -<p>“Of course! And I said some stuffy sort of thing to you, didn’t I?”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t think it—stuffy,” Ruth denied, utilizing his word. There -were seats where they were; and suddenly it occurred to her, when he -glanced at them, that he was remaining standing because she was, and -that he would like to sit down, and delay there with her. She gasped -a little at this realization; and she seated herself upon a gaily -painted bench. He looked about before he sat down.</p> - -<p>“Hello; I say, where’s Hub?”</p> - -<p>Lennon had disappeared; and Ruth knew why. She had forgotten him in -the excitement of meeting Gerry Hull; so he had felt himself in the -way and had immediately withdrawn. But she could do nothing to mend -that matter now; she turned to Gerry Hull, who was on the bench -beside her.</p> - -<p>He had more quickly banished any concern over his friend’s -disappearance and was observing Ruth with so frank an interest that, -instead of gazing away from her when she looked about at him, his -eyes for an instant rested upon hers; his were meditative, almost -wistful eyes for that moment. They made her think, suddenly, of the -little boy whose picture with his grandfather she used to see in her -father’s newspaper—an alert, energetic little boy, yet with a look -of wonder in his eyes why so much fuss was made about him.</p> - -<p>“I seem to’ve been saying no end of stuffy things since I’ve been -back, Miss Gail; they appeared to be what I was expected to say. But -I’m about at the finish of ’em. I’m to say something here this -afternoon; and I’m going to say exactly what I think. Wouldn’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Of course I would,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>“Then you forgive me?”</p> - -<p>“For what?”</p> - -<p>“Posing like such a self-righteous chump in a cab that you felt you -ought to ask me what you should do!”</p> - -<p>“You haven’t been posing,” Ruth denied for him again. “Why, when I -saw you, what amazed me was that—” she stopped suddenly as she saw -color come to his face.</p> - -<p>“That I wasn’t striking an attitude? Look here, I’m—or I was—one man -in fifty thousand in the foreign legion; and one in thousands who’ve -been in the air a bit. I’d no idea what I was getting into when they -told me to come home here or I’d—” he stopped and shifted the -subject from himself with abrupt finality. “You’re going to France, -Hub tells me. You’ve been there in peacetime, of course—Paris -surely.”</p> - -<p>Ruth nodded. She had not thought that, as Cynthia, she must have -been abroad until he was so certain of it.</p> - -<p>“Did you ever go about old Paris and just poke around, Miss Gail?”</p> - -<p>“In those quaint, crooked little streets which change their names -every time they twist?”</p> - -<p>“The Rue des Saints Pères, the Rue Pavée—that name rather takes one -back, doesn’t it? Some time ago it must have been when in Paris a -citizen could describe where he lived by saying it was on ‘the paved -street.’”</p> - -<p>“Yet it was only in the fifteenth century that wolves used to come -in winter into Paris.”</p> - -<p>“To scare François Villon into his <i>Lodgings for a</i> <i>Night</i>?” Gerry -said. “So you know that story of Stevenson’s, too?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose, though, you had to stay at the Continental, or the -Regina, or some hotel like that, didn’t you? I did at first, when my -tutor used to take me. You’d have been with your parents, of -course——”</p> - -<p>“Of course,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>“But have you planned where you’ll stay now? You’ll choose your own -billets, I believe.”</p> - -<p>Ruth appealed to her memories of Du Maurier and Victor Hugo; she had -read, long ago, <i>Trilby</i> and <i>Les Misérables</i>, of course, and -<i>Notre-Dame de Paris</i>; and she knew a good bit about old Paris.</p> - -<p>“The Latin Quarter’s cheapest, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>“And any amount the most sport!”</p> - -<p>She got along very well; or he was not at all critical. He was -relaxing with her from the strain of being upon exhibition; and he -seemed to be having a very good time. The joy of this made her bold -to plan with him all sorts of explorations of Paris when they would -meet over there with a day off. She looked away and closed her eyes -for a second, half expecting that when she opened them the sound of -music, and the roses, and palms, and conservatory, and Gerry Hull -must have vanished; but he was there when she glanced back. And she -noticed agreeable and pleasing things about him—the way his dark -hair brushed back above his temples, the character in his strong, -well-formed hands.</p> - -<div id='i001' class='mt01 mb01 wi001'> - <img src='images/illus-001.jpg' alt='' style='width:100%' /> - <p class='caption'>She looked away, half expecting the sound of the music, - and the roses, and palms, and Gerry Hull would vanish</p> -</div> - -<p>Lady Agnes came out looking for him; and he called her over:</p> - -<p>“Oh, Agnes, here we are!”</p> - -<p>So Ruth met Lady Agnes, too; but Lady Agnes took him away, -laughingly scolding him for having left her so long alone among all -those American people. Ruth did not follow; and while she lingered -beside the bench where he had sat with her, she warned herself that -Gerry Hull had paid her attention as a man of his breeding would -have paid any girl whom he had been brought out to meet. Then the -blood, warm within her, insisted that he had not disliked her; he -had even liked her for herself.</p> - -<p>The approach of an elderly woman in a gray dress returned Ruth to -the realities and the risks of the fraud she had been playing to win -Gerry Hull’s liking. For the woman gazed at her questioningly and -swiftly came up.</p> - -<p>Ruth arose. Was this Hubert Lennon’s “Aunt Emilie?” she wondered. -Had she recently seen the real Cynthia so that she was aware that -Ruth was not she?</p> - -<p>No; the woman was calling her Cynthia; and with the careful -enunciation of the syllables, Ruth recognized the voice as that -which had addressed her over the telephone when she was in her room -at the hotel.</p> - -<p>“Cynthia, you are doing well—excellently!” This could refer only to -the fact that she had met Gerry Hull already and had not displeased -him. “Develop this opportunity to the utmost; you may find him of -greatest possible use when you are in France!”</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chV' title='“You’re Not Like Anyone Else”'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER V</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>“YOU’RE NOT LIKE ANYONE ELSE”</span> -</h2> - -<p>The woman immediately moved away and left the conservatory. No one -could have observed her speaking to Ruth except, perhaps, Hubert -Lennon, who now had reappeared and, finding Ruth alone, offered his -escort shyly. If he had noticed and if he wondered what acquaintance -Cynthia had happened upon here, he did not inquire.</p> - -<p>“We’d better go into the other rooms,” he suggested. “They’re -starting speeches.”</p> - -<p>She accompanied him, abstractedly. Whatever question she had held as -to whether the Germans held her under surveillance had been -answered; but it was evident that so far, at least, her appearance -in the part of Cynthia Gail had satisfied them—indeed, more than -satisfied. What beset Ruth at this moment was the fact that she now -knew the identity of an unsuspected enemy among the guests in this -house; but she could not accuse that woman without at the same time -involving herself. It presented a nice problem in values; Ruth must -be quite confident that she possessed the will and the ability to -aid her side to greater extent than this woman could harm it; or she -must expose the enemy even at the cost of betraying herself.</p> - -<p>She looked for the woman while Hubert led her through the first -large room in the front of the big house, where scores of guests who -had been standing or moving about were beginning to find places in -the rows of chairs which servants were setting up. Hubert took Ruth -to a small, nervously intent lady with glistening black hair and -brows, who was seated and half turned about emphatically conversing -with the people behind her.</p> - -<p>“Aunt Emilie, here’s Cynthia,” Hubert said loudly to win her -attention; she looked up, scrutinized Ruth and smiled.</p> - -<p>“I had to help Mrs. Corliss receive, dear; or I’d have called for -you myself. So glad Hubert has you here.”</p> - -<p>Ruth took the hand which she outstretched and was drawn down beside -her. Aunt Emilie (Ruth knew no name for her in relation to herself -and therefore used none in her reply) continued to hold Ruth’s hand -affectionately for several moments and patted it with approval when -at last she let it go. Years ago she had been a close friend of -Cynthia Gail’s mother, it developed; Julia Gail had written her that -Cynthia was in Chicago on her way to France; Aunt Emilie had asked -Mrs. Corliss to telephone to Cynthia on Saturday inviting her here; -Aunt Emilie herself had telephoned on Sunday and Monday to the hotel -to find Cynthia, but vainly each time.</p> - -<p>“Where in the world were you all that time, my dear child?”</p> - -<p>A man’s voice suddenly rose above the murmur in the room. The man -was standing upon a little platform toward which the chairs were -faced and with him were an officer in the uniform of the French -Alpine chasseurs, Lady Agnes Ertyle, and Gerry Hull. For an instant -the start of the speaking was to Ruth only a happy interruption -postponing the problem of explanations to “Aunt Emilie”; but the -next minute Ruth had forgotten all about that small matter. Gerry -Hull, from his place on the platform, was looking for her.</p> - -<p>The French officer, having been introduced, had commenced to address -his audience in emphatic, exalted English; the others upon the -platform had sat down. Gerry Hull’s glance, which had been going -about the room studying the people present, had steadied to the look -of a search for some special one; his eyes found Ruth and rested. -She was that special one. He looked away soon; but his eyes had -ceased to search and again, when Ruth glanced directly at him, she -found him observing her.</p> - -<p>She leaned forward a little and tried not to look toward him or to -think about him too much; but that was hard to do. She had -recognized that, when Hubert Lennon had summoned Gerry Hull out to -the conservatory, something had been troubling him and he had been -on the brink of a decision. He had met her during the moments when -he must decide and, in a way, he had referred the decision to her. -“They’re going to make me say something here this afternoon; and -this time I’m going to say exactly what I think. Wouldn’t you?”</p> - -<p>She had told him that she would, without knowing at all what it was -about. Now it seemed to her that, as his time for speaking -approached, he was finding his determination more difficult.</p> - -<p>The French officer was making an extravagant address, praising -everyone here and all Americans for coming into the war to save -France and civilization; he was complimenting every American deed, -proclaiming gratitude in the name of his country for the aid which -America had given; and, while he was speaking thus excessively, Ruth -was aware that Gerry Hull was watching her most intently; and when -she glanced up at him she saw him draw up straighter in his chair -and sit there, looking away, with lips tight shut. The French -officer finished and, after the applause, Lady Agnes Ertyle was -introduced and she spoke earnestly and simply, telling a little of -the work of Americans in Belgium and in France, of the great value -of American contributions and moral support; she added her praise -and thanks for American aid.</p> - -<p>It seemed to Ruth that once Gerry Hull was about to interrupt. But -he did not; no one else appeared to notice his agitation; everyone -was applauding the pretty English girl who had spoken so gracefully -and was sitting down. The gentleman who was making the introductions -was beginning to relate who Gerry Hull was and what he had done, -when Gerry suddenly stood up. Everyone saw him and clapped wildly; -the introducer halted and turned; he smiled and sat down, leaving -him standing alone before his friends.</p> - -<p>Men here and there were rising while they applauded and called his -name; other men, women, and girls got to their feet. Hubert Lennon, -on Ruth’s left, was one of the first to stand up; his aunt was -standing. So Ruth arose then, too; everyone throughout the great -rooms was standing now in honor of Gerry Hull. He gazed about and -went white a little; he was looking again for someone lost in all -the standing throng; he was looking for Ruth! He saw her and studied -her queerly again for a moment. She sat down; others began settling -back and the rooms became still.</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon,” Ruth heard Gerry Hull’s voice apologizing first -to the man who had tried to introduce him. “I beg the pardon of you -all for what I’m going to say. It’s not a word of what I’m supposed -to say, I know; it’ll be just what I think and feel.</p> - -<p>“We’re not doing our part, people!” he burst out passionately -without more preparation. “We’re still taking protection behind -England and France, as we’ve done since the start of the war! We -ought to be there in force now! God knows, we ought to have been -there in force three years ago! But instead of being on the battle -line with them in force even with theirs, our position is so -pitiable that we make our allies feel grateful for a few score of -destroyers and a couple of army divisions holding down quiet sectors -in Lorraine. That’s because our allies have become so used to -expecting nothing—or next to nothing—of America that anything at all -which we do fills them with such sincere amazement that they -compliment and overwhelm us with thanks of the sort you have heard.”</p> - -<p>He turned about to the French officer and to Lady Agnes, who had -just spoken. “Forgive me!” he cried to them so that all in the rooms -could hear. “You know I mean no offense to you or lack of -appreciation of what you have said. You cannot tell the truth to my -people; I can for you, and I must!”</p> - -<p>He straightened and spoke to his own people again. “On the day that -German uhlans rode across the Belgian border, Belgium and England -and France—yes, even Russia—looked to us to come in; or, at least, -to protest and, if our protest was not respected, to enforce it by -our arms. But we did nothing—nothing but send a few dollars for -Belgian relief, a few ships of grain and a few civilians to -distribute it. The outrages of the Boche beasts went on—Termonde, -Louvain, the massacres of the Armenians, the systematic starvation -and enslavement of Belgians, Poles, Serbians; and we subscribed a -little more money for relief. Here and there American missionaries -saved a life or two. That’s all we did, my friends! So here in our -country and in our own newspapers the German Imperial Embassy paid -for and had printed advertisements boasting that they were going to -sink without warning ships sailing from our ports with our own -people aboard; and they sank the <i>Lusitania</i>!</p> - -<p>“Then England and France and the remnant of Belgium said, ‘Surely -now America must come in!’ But you know what we did!”</p> - -<p>He stopped, breathless, and Ruth was leaning forward, breathless -too. The passion which had seized and was swaying him was rousing -like passions in the others before him; his revolt had become their -revolt; and they warmed and kindled with him. But she did not. -Though this outburst of his soul brought to her feeling for him, -himself, beyond what she could have believed, the meaning of what he -said did not so inflame her. Her feeling was amazingly personal to -him.</p> - -<p>“We protested,” he was going on. “Protested; and did nothing! They -sank our ships and murdered our own people under the American flag; -and we continued to protest! And England and France and the nations -holding back the Boche with them ceased to honor us with -expectations of action; so, expecting nothing, naturally they became -more grateful and amazed at anything which we happened to do. When -the Kaiser told us he might allow us—if we were very good—one ship a -week to Europe, provided we sent him notice in advance and we -painted it in stripes, just as he said, and when that at last was -too much for us to take, they honored us in Europe with wondering -what we would do; and they thanked and complimented us, their new -ally, for sending them more doctors and medical supplies without -charging them for it, and after a while a few divisions of soldiers.</p> - -<p>“God knows I would say no word against our men who have gone to -France; I speak for them! For I have been an American in France and -have learned some of the shame of it! The shame,” he repeated -passionately, “of being an American! I have gone about an ordinary -duty, performing it much after the fashion of my comrades in the -French service—or in the British—and when I have returned, I have -found that what I happened to do is the thing picked out for special -mention and praise to the public, when others who have done the same -or more than myself have not had that honor. Because I was an -American! They feel they must yet compliment and thank Americans for -doing what they have been doing as a matter of course all this time -that we have stayed out; so they thank and praise us for beginning -to do now what we ought to have done in 1914.</p> - -<p>“We have been sitting here—you and I—letting our allies thank us for -at last beginning to fight a little of our war! Think of that when -they have been giving themselves and their all—all—in our cause for -three and a half years!”</p> - -<p>He stepped back suddenly and stood with bowed head as though—Ruth -thought—he had meant to say more, but suddenly had found that he -could not. She was trembling as she sat staring at him; she was -alone in her chair now; for the people all about, overswept by their -feelings, were standing up again, and clapping wildly, and calling -out: “France! France!... England! France!... Belgium!... England!” -they were crying in adulation.</p> - -<p>She saw him again for an instant; he had stepped back a little -farther, and raised his head, and was gazing at the people -acclaiming him and the allies for whom he had spoken. He stared -about and seemed to seek her—at least, he gazed about when this -great acclaim suddenly bewildered him, as he had gazed before he had -spoken and when his eyes had found her. She stood up then; but he -turned about to Lady Agnes, who had risen and was beside him; the -people in front of Ruth screened him from sight and when she got -view of the platform again he was gone.</p> - -<p>The guests were leaving their chairs and moving toward the rooms -where refreshments were being served; but it was many minutes before -Ruth heard anyone mention other matters than the war and Gerry -Hull’s speech. That had been a thoroughly remarkable and sincere -statement of the American position, Ruth heard the people about her -saying; to have heard it was a real experience.</p> - -<p>It had come as the climax of what for Ruth was far more than that; -the darkening of the early winter night outside the drawn curtains -of the windows, the tinkling of a little clock for the half -hour—half-past four—brought to her the amazing transformation worked -upon Ruth Alden since, scarcely six hours before, the wonderful wand -of war had touched her. With the dawn of this same day which was -slipping so fast into the irrevocable past, she had awakened to -dream as of a wish unrealizable that she might welcome Gerry Hull -home; now she knew him; she had talked with him alone; when she had -been among all his friends in the other room, he had sought her with -his eyes. He had disappeared from the rooms now; and no one seemed -to know where he had gone, though many inquired. But Ruth knew; so -she slipped away from Hubert Lennon and from his Aunt Emilie, who -had forgotten all about asking where Cynthia had been the last two -days; and Ruth returned to the conservatory.</p> - -<p>Upon that bench where they had sat together, hidden by the palms, -and hanging vines, and the roses, she saw him sitting alone, bent -forward with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, -staring down at the floor.</p> - -<p>He looked up quickly as he heard her step; she halted, frightened -for a moment by her own boldness. If he had chosen that spot for his -flight from the others, it would mean—she had felt—that he was -willing that she should return there. But how did she know that? -Might it not be wholly in her fancy that, since they had separated, -he had thought about her at all?</p> - -<p>“Hello, Miss Gail!” he hailed her quickly, but so quietly that it -was certain he wished no one else to know that he was there. “I was -wondering how I could get you here.”</p> - -<p>Her heart began beating once more. “I wondered if you’d be here,” -she said; he could make of that a good deal what he liked.</p> - -<p>He stood up. “Let’s stay here, please,” he asked her, whispering; -and he bent a little while he waited for her to be seated, hiding -from sight of anyone who might glance over the tops of the palms. He -was beside her on the bench now.</p> - -<p>“I want you to tell me what I did in there just now, Miss Gail,” he -asked. “Agnes Ertyle can’t, of course; others, whom I know pretty -well, won’t. But you will, I think.”</p> - -<p>The complete friendliness of this confidence made Ruth wonder what -he might have known about Cynthia Gail, which let him thus so -instinctively disclose himself to her; but it was not to Cynthia -Gail; it was to her, herself, Ruth!</p> - -<p>“I’ve only known you for an hour, Miss Gail; but I’d rather have -your honest opinion than that of any other American.”</p> - -<p>From the way he said that, she could not tell whether he had chosen -his word purposely to except Lady Agnes Ertyle from any comparison -with her; and she wanted to know!</p> - -<p>“I think you meant to say a very, very fine thing,” Ruth told him -simply.</p> - -<p>“But I actually said——”</p> - -<p>“You’ve been a long time away from home—from America, our country,” -Ruth interrupted him before he could get her into greater -difficulties. “You’ve only known me an hour; but, of course, I’ve -known you—or about you—for a good many years. Everyone has. You’ve -been away ever since the start of the war, of course; and even -before that you were away, mostly in England, for the greater part -of your time, weren’t you?”</p> - -<p>“I was at school at Harrow for a while,” he confessed. “And I was at -Cambridge in 1913-1914.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I thought. So while you’ve called yourself an American -and you’ve meant to stay an American—I know you meant that—you -couldn’t quite really become one, could you?”</p> - -<p>He drew back from her a trifle and his eyes rested upon hers a -little confused, while color crept into his brown face and across -his forehead.</p> - -<p>“Please tell me just what you want to,” he begged.</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to tell you a thing unpleasant!” she cried quietly. -“And I can’t, unless you’ll believe that I never admired anyone so -much as you when you were speaking—I mean anyone,” she qualified -quickly, “who was saying things which I believed all wrong!”</p> - -<p>Terror for her boldness caught her again; but it was because he had -seen that with him she must be bold—or honest—that he had wanted her -there; for he did want her there and more than before. While he had -been speaking, she had been thinking about him—thinking as well as -feeling for him; and she had been thinking about him ever -since—thinking thoughts her own, or at least distinct from his and -from those of his friends in the other rooms who had so acclaimed -him and from whom he had fled. He realized it; and that was why he -wanted her.</p> - -<p>“I believe that to be a true American is the highest honor in the -world today,” she said with the simplicity of deep feeling. “I -believe that, so far from having anything to be ashamed about, an -American—particularly such an American as you might be——”</p> - -<p>“Might be!” he repeated.</p> - -<p>“Has more to be rightly proud of than anyone else! And not alone -because America is in the war now, but because—at the cost of -staying out so long—our country came in when and how she did! You -understand I say nothing against our allies—nothing like what you -have said against our own country! Belgium got the first attack of -the Germans and fought back, oh, so nobly, and so bravely, and -hopelessly; but Belgium was invaded! France fought, as everyone -knows, in self-defense and for a principle; England fought in -self-defense, too, as well as for a principle—for were not the -German guns almost at her shores? But we have gone in for a -principle—and in self-defense, too, perhaps; but for the principle -first! Oh, there is a difference in that! A hundred million people -safe and unthreatened—for whether or not we really were safe and -unthreatened, we believed we were—going into a war without idea of -any possible gain or advantage solely for a principle! Oh, I don’t -mean to make a speech to you.”</p> - -<p>“Go on!” he ordered. “I’ve just made one; you go on now.”</p> - -<p>“You spoke about the Kaiser’s order to us about how to paint our -ships, as if the insult of that was what at last brought us in! How -little that had to do with it for us! It merely happened to come at -the time we could at last go in—when a hundred million people, not -in danger which they could see or feel, decided to go in, knowing -even better than those who had decided earlier what it was going to -mean. For the war was different then from what it was at first; the -Russia of the Czar and of the empire was gone; and in France and in -England there was a difference, too. Oh, I don’t know how to say it; -just France, at first, was fighting as France and for France against -Germany; and England, for England, was doing the same. And America -couldn’t do that—I mean fight for America; she couldn’t join with -allies who were fighting for themselves or even for one another. The -side of the allies had to become more than that before we could go -in; and it is and we’re in! Oh, I don’t know how or when it will -appear; but I know—know that before long you will be prouder to be -an American than you ever dreamed you could be if we had gone in -like the others when you thought we should.”</p> - -<p>She had been gazing at him and, for a few moments, he had been -staring in bewilderment at her; but now he was turned away and she -could see from the set of his lips, from the pulse throbbing below -his temple as the muscles of his face pulled taut, how she had -offended him.</p> - -<p>“Thank you,” he said to her shortly.</p> - -<p>“I’ve hurt you!”</p> - -<p>“Didn’t you mean to?”</p> - -<p>“Not this way.”</p> - -<p>“You told what you thought; I asked to know it. How do you happen to -be here, Miss Gail?” he asked with sudden directness after a pause.</p> - -<p>Ruth recollected swiftly Cynthia Gail’s connections through Hubert -Lennon’s aunt with Mrs. Corliss and she related them to Gerry Hull, -perforce; and this unavoidable deception distressed her more than -all the previous ones she had played. She realized that, in order to -understand what she had said, he was trying to understand her; and -she wished that she could tell him that she was Ruth Alden, working, -only as late as that morning, in Hilton Brothers’ office.</p> - -<p>“You’re not like anyone else here,” he said, without pressing his -inquiry further. “Hub Lennon told me that he had a different sort of -girl with him. These other people are all like myself; you saw the -way they took what I said. They didn’t take it as said against them; -they’ve been in the war, heart and soul, since the first. You’ve -only come in when we—I mean America,” he corrected with a wince, -“came in. I think I felt that without knowing it; that’s why I -talked to you more than to all the rest together. That’s why I -needed to see you again; you’re more of an American, I guess, than -anyone else here.”</p> - -<p>He said that with a touch of bitterness which prevented her offering -reply.</p> - -<p>“You haven’t hurt me as me,” he denied. “If you just told me that my -country believed I was wrong and had been fighting for something -lower than it was willing to fight for until April, 1917, why that -would be all right. But what you have said is against the finest, -noblest, most chivalrous men the world ever knew—a good many of them -dead, now, fallen on the field of honor, Americans—Americans of the -highest heart, Norman Prince, Kiffen Rockwell, Vic Chapman, and the -rest! If being American means to wait, after you see beasts like the -Germans murdering women and children, until you’ve satisfied your -smug soul that everyone who’s fighting the beast is just your sort, -they weren’t Americans and I’m not an American either, thank God!”</p> - -<p>He arose from beside her in his overwhelming emotion; and she, -without knowing what she did, put out a hand, and caught his sleeve, -and pulled him down beside her again.</p> - -<p>“Wait!” she almost commanded him. “I can’t have you misunderstand me -so! This morning when I woke up—it was before I knew I was to meet -you—I tried to imagine knowing you!”</p> - -<p>“To tell me what you have?”</p> - -<p>“To thank you for what you have done!”</p> - -<p>“You’re a strange person!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I can’t explain everything even to myself!” Ruth cried. “I only -know that you—and the men you’ve mentioned—had the wonderful right -to do, of yourselves, fine and brave things before our country had -the right!”</p> - -<p>That was sheer stupidity to him, she saw; and she could not make it -clearer. He wanted to leave her now; but he did not forget himself -as he had the moment earlier. He waited for her to rise and he -accompanied her to the other rooms. They separated without formal -leave-taking as others claimed him, and Hubert Lennon found her. -Hubert and his aunt took her back to the hotel, where Aunt -Emilie—Ruth yet had no name for her—offered an invitation for -luncheon tomorrow or the day after. Ruth accepted for the second day -and went up to her room, where she locked herself in, took off the -yellow dress, and flung herself face downward across the bed.</p> - -<p>Except for the chocolate and little cakes served at Mrs. Corliss’, -she had eaten nothing since breakfast; but she scarcely thought to -be hungry or considered her weariness now. What a day had been given -to her; and how frightfully she had bungled it! She had met Gerry -Hull, and he had found interest in her, and she had taken advantage -of his interest only to offend, and insult him, and turn him away! -The Germans, upon whose support she must depend in all her plans, -had given her a first definite order; and she had completely -disregarded it in her absorption in offending Gerry Hull. At any -moment, therefore, they might take action against her—either direct -action of their own, or give information which would expose her to -the American authorities, and bring about her arrest and disgrace. A -miserable end, now, not only to her great resolves of that morning, -but to any possible rehabilitation with Gerry Hull! For if that -morning she had dreamed of meeting him, now this night a thousand -times intensified she thought of him again and again—constantly, it -seemed. And yet she would not have taken back a word of that which -had angered him and turned him away.</p> - -<p>She got up at last and went down alone to dinner; and, when nothing -more happened, she returned to her own room, where after more -carefully going over all Cynthia Gail’s things, she took plain paper -and an envelope and wrote a short note to Sam Hilton, informing him -that most important personal matters suddenly had forced her to give -up her position with him; she wrote the landlady at her boarding -house that she had been called home and would either return or send -for her trunk later. She mailed these herself and went to bed.</p> - -<p>The next morning she bought a small typewriter, of the sort which -one can carry traveling, and took up Cynthia Gail’s correspondence. -Neither the mail of that day nor the telephone presented to her any -difficult problem; and she had no new callers. Indeed, except for -Hubert Lennon, who “looked by”—as he spoke of it—just before noon, -she encountered no one who had anything to say to her until, walking -out early in the afternoon, she met upon the street the woman in -gray who had given her the order about Gerry Hull on yesterday -afternoon.</p> - -<p>Ruth went a little weak with fright when the woman caught step -beside her; but the woman at once surprised her with reassurance.</p> - -<p>“Gerry Hull returns to France from here,” the woman informed -abruptly. “He will be transferred to the American air service there; -he will sail from New York probably on the <i>Ribot</i> next week. That -is a passenger vessel, carrying cargo, of course; but not yet used -for troop shipments. Passengers proceed as individuals. You will -probably be allowed a certain amount of choice in selecting your -ship. So you shall report at New York and endeavor to secure passage -upon the <i>Ribot</i>. Understand?”</p> - -<p>“Perfectly,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>“Your friendship with Gerry Hull will prove invaluable in France! Do -nothing to jeopardize it! You have done with him, well! But you are -in too much danger here; go East tonight; wait there.”</p> - -<p>The woman went away. How much did she know about what had passed -with Gerry Hull, Ruth wondered. She had seen, probably, that Ruth -was with him again in the conservatory after his speech and that -they had stayed there a long time together. She had done with him, -well! She smiled woefully to herself; at least it seemed to have -aided her that the Germans thought so.</p> - -<p>It would have puzzled her more, certainly, if she had known that -after the time when Gerry Hull and she forgot to whisper and forgot, -indeed, everyone but themselves, the woman had heard almost every -word which was said; and that the woman’s opinion of the girl who -was playing the part of Cynthia Gail was that she was a very clever -one to know enough and dare enough to take single and violent -opposition to Gerry Hull. For the Germans, in preparation for this -war, had made a most elaborate and detailed study of psychology of -individuals and of nations. That study of nations has not shown -conspicuously successful results; but their determination of factors -which are supposed to influence individuals is said to have fared -far better.</p> - -<p>Their instructions to a woman—or a girl—who is commanded to make an -impression upon a man inform that a girl in dealing with a weak -character progresses most certainly and fastest by agreeing and -complying; but when one has to do with a man of strong character, -opposition and challenge to him bring the surest result.</p> - -<p>Of course that is not an exclusively German discovery; and to act in -accordance with it, one is not obliged to be truly a German spy and -to know it from the tutorings of a German psychologist. Indeed, one -does not have to know it at all; one need merely be a young girl, -thoughtful and honest, as well as impulsive and of quick but deep -passions, who admires and cares so very much for a young man who has -talked serious things with her, that she cannot just say yes to his -yes and no to his no, but must try at once to work out the -difference between them.</p> - -<p>Not to know it is hard on that girl, particularly when she is -setting out upon an adventure which at once cuts her off from -everyone whom she has known.</p> - -<p>Ruth had no companion at all. She had to write to her own mother in -Onarga, of course; and, after buying with cash an order for two -thousand dollars, she sent it to her mother with a letter saying -that she was assigned to a most wonderful work which was taking her -abroad. She was not yet free to discuss the details; but her mother -must trust her and know that she was doing a right and wise thing; -and her mother must say nothing about it to anyone at all. It might -keep her away for two years or more; so the people who were paying -her expenses had forwarded her this money for home. Ruth wished her -mother to send for her clothes and her trunk from the boarding -house; Ruth would not need them. And if any inquiry came for Ruth -from Hilton Brothers or elsewhere, Ruth had gone East to take a -position. There was no use writing her at the old addresses; she -would send an address later.</p> - -<p>She knew her mother; and she knew that her mother was sure enough of -her so that she would do as asked and not worry too much.</p> - -<p>So upon that same afternoon, Ruth packed up Cynthia Gail’s things; -and she wrote to Cynthia Gail’s parents and to Second Lieutenant -George Byrne at Camp Grant, signing the name below the writing as -Cynthia Gail had signed it upon her passport.</p> - -<p>That passport was ceasing to be a mere possession and was soon to be -put to use; so Ruth practiced long in signing the name. The -description of Cynthia Gail as checked on the passport was almost -faultless for herself; height, five feet six and a half inches; -weight, 118 pounds; face, oval; eyes, blue; hair, yellow; and so -with all the rest. The photograph of Cynthia Gail was pasted upon -the passport and upon it was stamped the seal of the United States, -as well as a red-ink stamping which went over the edge of the -photograph upon the paper of the passport. It was very possible, -Ruth thought, that the German girl for whom this passport was -intended would have removed that picture of Cynthia Gail and -substituted one of herself; to do that required an emboss seal of -the United States, besides the rubber stamp of the red ink. Ruth did -not doubt that the Germans possessed replicas of these and also the -skill to forge the substitution. But she possessed neither.</p> - -<p>Moreover, the photograph of Cynthia Gail seemed to Ruth even more -like herself than it had at first. The difference was really more in -expression than in the features themselves; and Ruth, consciously or -unconsciously, had become more like that girl in the picture. She -had, also, the identical dress in which the picture was taken. She -determined to wear that when she presented the passport and risk the -outcome. Her advantage so far had been that no one had particular -reason to suspect her; she had fitted herself into the relations -already arranged to take Cynthia Gail to France and they seemed -capable, of their own momentum, to carry her on.</p> - -<p>Hubert Lennon “looked by” again later in the afternoon and she asked -him to tell his aunt that she was going away. He was much concerned -and insistent upon doing what he could to aid her.</p> - -<p>“Do you know when you’ll be sailing?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“I hope next week,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Could you possibly go on the <i>Ribot</i>?”</p> - -<p>“Why on the <i>Ribot</i>?”</p> - -<p>“Gerry Hull’s just got word that he’s to join again on the other -side,” Hubert said, “so he’ll be going back next week on the -<i>Ribot</i>, he thinks.”</p> - -<p>Ruth checked just in time a “Yes, I know.”</p> - -<p>“I’m going to try to get across with him,” Hubert added. Ruth felt -liking again for this young man who always put his friend before -himself.</p> - -<p>“That’s good. I hope surely I can get on the <i>Ribot</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Aunt Emilie knows people in New York who’ll help arrange it for -you, if I ask ’em. You’ll let me?”</p> - -<p>“Please!” Ruth accepted eagerly. She wanted exceedingly to know one -other thing; but she delayed asking and then made the query as -casual as she could.</p> - -<p>“Lady Agnes stays in Chicago a while?”</p> - -<p>Hubert colored as this question ended for him his pretense with -himself that she wanted to be on the <i>Ribot</i> because of him.</p> - -<p>“No; she’s going when Gerry goes. She plans to be on the <i>Ribot</i> -too. They always intended to return at the same time.”</p> - -<p>“Of course,” Ruth said. What wild fancies she followed!</p> - -<p>Hubert went off; but returned to take her to the train. He brought -with him letters from his aunt—credentials of Ruth as Cynthia Gail -to powerful people who did not know Cynthia Gail, and who were asked -to further her desires in every way.</p> - -<p>Thus, at the end of seven days, Ruth Alden sailed for the first time -away from her native land upon the <i>Ribot</i> for Bordeaux to become—in -the reports of the American authorities who approved and passed her -on—a worker in the devastated districts of France; to become, in -whatever report the agents of Hohenzollernism in America made to -their superiors, a dependable and resourceful spy for Germany; to -become—in the resolution she swore to herself and to the soul of -Cynthia Gail and the prayers she prayed—an emissary for her cause -and her country into the land of the enemy who would know no mercy -to such as herself.</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chVI' title='“We’re Fighting”'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER VI</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>“WE’RE FIGHTING”</span> -</h2> - -<p>There is a thrill upon awaking on your first morning on board a ship -at sea which all the German U-boats under the ocean can scarcely -increase. You may imagine all you please what it may be; and it will -amaze you with something more. Ruth Alden had imagined; and her -first forenoon on shipboard was filled with surprises.</p> - -<p>She had gone aboard from the New York quay at nine the evening -before, as she had been warned to do; she had looked into her -cabin—a small, square white compartment with two bunks, upper and -lower, an unupholstered seat, a washbowl with a looking glass beside -the porthole and with a sort of built-in bureau with four drawers, -above which was posted conspicuously the rules to be observed in -emergencies. These were printed in French and English and were -illustrated by drawings of exactly how to adjust the life-preservers -to be found under all berths. Someone, whose handbaggage bore the -initials “M. W.” and who evidently was to share the cabin with her, -had been in before her and gone out. Ruth saw that the steward -disposed her cabin baggage beside M. W.’s; she shut herself in a -moment after the steward had gone, touching the pillow of her bunk, -reading the rules again, trying the water-taps. She stood with shut -eyes, breathing deliciously the strange, scrubbed, salty smells of a -deep-water boat; she opened the door and went out to the deck with -the darkness of the Hudson on one hand; upon the other, the -myriad-lighted majesty of New York.</p> - -<p>She was standing there at the rail gazing up at the marvelous city -when Hubert Lennon found her. He merely wanted to make sure she was -aboard. Gerry Hull and Captain Lescault—he was the French officer -who had spoken at Mrs. Corliss’—and an English captain, Forraker, of -the same party, were aboard now; Lady Agnes and the Englishwomen -with whom she traveled also were aboard, Hubert said.</p> - -<p>He was glad to find that Cynthia was all right; but he said that a -nasty sea was running outside; the <i>Ribot</i> might go out at any time. -Hubert thought Cynthia had better go to bed and get all the sleep -she could.</p> - -<p>Ruth went below, not with any idea of sleeping, but to avoid meeting -Gerry Hull just yet. That she was aboard the <i>Ribot</i> under orders -did not undo the fact that she was here for the conscious purpose of -furthering her acquaintance with him. He must guess that, she -thought—he from whom she had heard nothing at all since that -afternoon at Mrs. Corliss’.</p> - -<p>Ruth was ready for bed when someone put a key in the cabin door, but -knocked before turning it, and a girl’s pleasant voice inquired, -“All right to come in?”</p> - -<p>“All right,” Ruth said, covering up in bed.</p> - -<p>A dark-haired, dark-eyed girl of twenty-six or seven entered. “I’m -Milicent Wetherell,” she introduced herself. “I’m from St. Louis; -I’m going to Paris for work in a <i>vestiaire</i>.”</p> - -<p>Ruth sat up and put out her hand; she liked this girl on sight. “I’m -Ru——Cynthia Gail of Decatur, Illinois,” she caught herself swiftly. -It was the first time in the eight days that she had been Cynthia -that she had made even so much of a slip; but Milicent Wetherell did -not notice it.</p> - -<p>Milicent went to bed and turned out the light. The boat did not -move; and after indefinite hours of lying still in the dark, Ruth -dropped to sleep. When she awoke it was daylight; the ship was -swaying, falling, rising; the tremor of engines shook it. They were -at sea.</p> - -<p>The waves were higher than any Ruth had encountered before, but they -were slower and smoother too—not nearly so jumpy and choppy as the -Lake Michigan surf in a strong wind. The big steamer rose and rolled -to them far more steadily than the vessels upon which Ruth had -voyaged on holidays on the lake. Milicent Wetherell, in the lower -berth, lay miserably awake with no desire whatever to get up; but -Ruth let the stewardess lead her to the bath; she dressed and found -the way to the dining-saloon. She was supplied, along with a number -designating her “abandon ship” place in starboard lifeboat No. 7, a -numeral for a seat at a table.</p> - -<p>At this hour of half after nine, there were perhaps fifty men at -breakfast and just five other women or girls; four men were seated -at the table to which Ruth was led—Captain Forraker one of them. He -arose as she approached. Possibly he remembered her, Ruth thought, -from an introduction at Mrs. Corliss’; much more probably Hubert -Lennon—who undoubtedly had had her placed at this table—had reminded -Captain Forraker about her. His three table-companions arose and -Captain Forraker presented them to her; they were all English—two -young officers and one older man, in rank a colonel, who had been -about some ordnance inspection work in America. Ruth sat down; they -sat down and resumed their talk; and Ruth got the first of her -morning amazements. She was in a foreign land, already; she was not -just on the way there, though still in sight of Long Island. She was -now in Europe, with Europeans thinking and talking, not as guests of -America, but as Europeans at home again.</p> - -<p>Ruth had been brought up, as a good American, to believe her country -the greatest in the world; and, implicitly, she believed it. She -recognized that sons and daughters of other nations likewise were -reared to believe their native land the best and their people the -noblest; but she never had been able to quite believe that they -really could think so. They must make an exception, down deep in -their consciousness, for America, she was sure; however loyal they -might be to their own institutions and to their own fellows, they -must admire more highly the American ideals of freedom and -democracy, and they must consider that the people who lived by and -for those ideals were potentially, at least, the greatest.</p> - -<p>It was a momentous experience, therefore, to hear her country -discussed—not in an unfriendly way or even with prejudice, but by -open-minded foreigners trying to inform one another of the facts -about America as they had found them; America was a huge but quite -untried quantity; its institutions and ideals seemed to them -interesting, but on the whole not nearly so good as their own; -certainly there was no suggestion of their endowing Americans with -superior battle abilities, therefore. The nation—that nation founded -more than a hundred and forty years ago which was to Ruth the basis -of all being—was to them simply an experiment of which no one could -yet tell the outcome.</p> - -<p>They did not say that, of course; they said nothing at all to which -she could take the slightest exception. They simply brought to her -the brevity and unconclusiveness of a century of independent -existence in the perspective of a thousand; their national thought -started not with 1776 but with the Conquest or, even earlier, when -the Roman legions abandoned Britain and King Arthur reigned.</p> - -<p>When they spoke of their homes, as they did once, and Ruth found -opportunity to inquire of one of them how long he had had his home -in Sussex, he told her:</p> - -<p>“The present house goes back to 1582.”</p> - -<p>It rather made her gasp. No wonder that a man of a family which had -occupied the “present” house since before the Pilgrims sailed, -looked upon America as an unproved venture.</p> - -<p>“They’re in it to the end now, I consider,” this man commented later -to his companion when they returned to the discussion of America and -the war.</p> - -<p>“Quite so, probably,” the other said. “The South went to absolute -exhaustion in their Civil War.”</p> - -<p>“Absolutely,” the Sussex man agreed. “North probably would have too, -if necessary.”</p> - -<p>They were estimating American will and endurance, not by pretty -faiths and protestations, but by what Americans, in their short -history, had actually shown.</p> - -<p>“But this is foreign war, of course;” the colonel qualified the -judgment dubiously.</p> - -<p>The man whose “present” house went back to 1582 nodded thoughtfully.</p> - -<p>Ruth received all this eagerly; it could not in the least shake her -own confidence in her people; but it gave her better comprehension -of the ideas which Gerry Hull had gained from his association with -Europeans. And this morning, when she was certain to meet him, she -wished—oh she wished to an incredible degree—to understand him more -fully than before. She learned from a remark of Captain Forraker’s -that Gerry Hull and Lady Agnes had breakfasted early and had gone -out on deck. Ruth had intended to go on deck after breakfast; but -now she changed her mind. She went to the saloon; and hardly was she -there, when Gerry Hull and Lady Agnes came in from the cold.</p> - -<p>They were laughing together at something which had happened without. -Ruth saw them before either of them noticed her; and her heart -halted in the excitement of expectancy during the instant Gerry -Hull’s glance went about the saloon. He saw her; nodded to her and -looked at once to Lady Agnes, who immediately advanced to Ruth, -greeting her cordially and with perfect recollection of having -talked with her at Mrs. Corliss’. Upon this French ship bound for -Europe, the English girl was at home as the Englishmen at the -breakfast table had been; she felt herself, in a sense, a hostess of -Ruth.</p> - -<p>“You’ve been about the ship yet, Miss Gail?” Gerry Hull asked.</p> - -<p>“Only a little last night,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>“Come out on deck then,” he invited her. “Done for just now, Agnes?” -he asked.</p> - -<p>“Just now,” Agnes said. “But I know you’re not. Go on!” she bid, -smiling at him as his eyes came to hers.</p> - -<p>Ruth saw it as she started away to her cabin for her coat. There had -been some concern—not much, but some—in Agnes Ertyle’s look that -first time she discovered Gerry Hull and Ruth together; there was no -suggestion of concern now.</p> - -<p>“Hub’s sick, poor chap,” Gerry told Ruth when she came out and they -set off side by side up the promenade deck against the cold, winter -wind. “He wanted me to tell you that’s why he couldn’t look you up -this morning.”</p> - -<p>Had Hub—her loyal, self-derogatory Hub—therefore arranged with his -friend to give her this attention, Ruth wondered. Not that Gerry -Hull offered himself perfunctorily; he was altogether too well bred -for that. He held out his hand to her as the wind threatened to -sweep her from her feet; she locked arms with him and together they -struggled forward to the bow where a spray shield protected them and -they turned to each other and rested.</p> - -<p>“Pretty good out here, isn’t it?” he asked, drawing deep breaths of -the cold, salt air, his dark cheeks glowing.</p> - -<p>“Glorious!” Ruth cried. “I never——” she checked herself quickly, -almost forgetting.</p> - -<p>“Crossed in winter before?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Neither’ve I—in real winter weather; except when coming home this -last time.”</p> - -<p>Ruth glanced up at him and caught his eyes pondering her. He had -meant merely to be courteous to her when meeting her on shipboard; -but too much had passed between them, in their brief, tempestuous -first meeting. He was feeling that as well as she! The gage which -she had thrown before him was not to be ignored. However certainly -he may have thought that he would be merely polite to this girl who -had—he deemed—insulted his comrades and himself, however -determinedly he had planned to chat with her about wind and weather, -he wanted to really talk with her now! And however firmly Ruth had -decided to avoid any word which could possibly offend him, still she -found herself replying:</p> - -<p>“Then you think of Chicago as your home?”</p> - -<p>“Of course; why not?”</p> - -<p>She turned her back more squarely to the wind and gazed down the -length of the deck, hesitating.</p> - -<p>“I might as well own up, Miss Gail,” he said to her suddenly. “I’m -still mad.”</p> - -<p>“At me?”</p> - -<p>“At you. For a while I was so mad that I didn’t want to see you or -think of you,” he admitted with the frankness which had enabled him -to ask her, directly, how she happened to be at Mrs. Corliss’. “But -that didn’t seem to do me any good. So I called up your hotel——”</p> - -<p>“You did? When?”</p> - -<p>“After you were gone—about two days after. They had no address for -you and Hub had none. I asked him.”</p> - -<p>Ruth trembled with joyous excitement.</p> - -<p>“I wanted to tell you better what I meant,” he went on. “And to find -out more from you.”</p> - -<p>“About?”</p> - -<p>“What we’d been arguing. I told you that day I’d never had a chance -to talk over affairs with an American like you; and I hadn’t later.</p> - -<p>“You see,” he explained after a moment of thought, “it seemed to me -that the other people I met at home—or most of them, anyway—went -into the war as a sort of social event. I don’t mean that they made -light of it; they didn’t. They were heart and soul in the cause; and -a good many of them did a lot of real work. But they didn’t react to -any—original ideas, as far as I could make out. They imported their -opinions and sympathies. And the ones who were hottest to have -America in the war weren’t the people who’d been most of their lives -in America; but the ones who’d been in England or France. I told you -that day that what they said was just what I’d been hearing on the -other side.”</p> - -<p>In spite of the canvas shield, it was very cold where they were -standing. Gerry moved a bit as he talked; and Ruth stepped with him, -letting him lead her to a door which he opened, to discover a little -writing room or card room which happened to be deserted just then. -He motioned to her to precede him; and when she sat down upon one of -the upholstered chairs fixed before a table, he took the place -opposite, tossing his cap away and loosening his coat. She -unbuttoned her coat and pulled off her heavy gloves. She had made no -reply, and he seemed to expect none, but to be satisfied with her -waiting.</p> - -<p>“I suppose you’re thinking that’s the way I got my opinions too,” he -said. “But it’s not quite true. I wasn’t trying to be English or -French or foreign in any way. I was proud—not ashamed—to be -American. Why, at school in England they used to have a regular game -to get me started bragging about America and Chicago and our West. I -liked the people over there; but I liked our people better. -Grandfather—well, he seemed to me about the greatest sort of man -possible; and his friends and father’s friends who used to come to -look me up at Harrow once in a while—some of ’em were pretty raw and -uncouth, but I liked to show ’em off! I did. They’d all done -something themselves; and most of ’em were still doing things—big -things—and putting in eight or ten hours a day in their offices. -They weren’t gentlemen at all in the sense that my friends at Harrow -knew English gentlemen; but I said they were the real thing. -America—my country—was made up of men who really did things!</p> - -<p>“Then the war came and showed us up! I tell you, Miss Gail, I -couldn’t believe it at first. It seemed to me that the news couldn’t -be getting across to America; or that lies only were reaching you. -Then the American newspapers came to France and everyone could see -that we knew and stayed out!”</p> - -<p>“Last week,” Ruth said, “and yesterday; and before I met you this -morning, I knew how to tell you what I tried to that day at Mrs. -Corliss’. I’ve thought more about that, I’m sure, than anything else -recently; but now—” she gazed across the little table at him and -shook her head—“it’s no use. It’s not anything one can argue, I -guess. It’s just faith and feeling—faith in our own people, -Lieutenant Hull!”</p> - -<p>She saw, as he watched her, that she was disappointing him and that -he had been hoping that, somehow, she could resolve the doubts of -his own people which possessed him; she saw—as she had observed at -Mrs. Corliss’—that his eyes lingered upon her face, upon her hands, -as though he liked her; but her stubbornness in upholding those -people whom she would not even try to explain, offended him again. -He glanced out the port above her.</p> - -<p>“We’re picking up a cruiser escort,” he said suddenly. “Let’s go out -and look her over.”</p> - -<p>So they were on deck in the cold and wind again. And during the rest -of that day, and upon the following days, almost every hour brought -her into some sort of association with him on the decks, in the -lounge, or in the writing rooms, during the morning; luncheon at the -same table. Then the afternoon, as the morning, would be made up of -hours when she would be sitting in the warm, bright saloon with her -French war-study book before her and she would be carefully -rehearsing “<i>Masque respirateur</i>—respirator; <i>lunettes</i>—goggles; -<i>nauge de gaz</i>—gas fumes ...” when she would hear his quick, -impulsive step or his clear, pleasant voice speaking to someone and -Ruth would get <i>combat animé</i> and <i>combat décousu</i> hopelessly -mixed. She would go out to walk the deck again with Hubert—who was -apologetically up and about when the seas were smoother—or with -Captain Lescault or Captain Forraker or with “1582” (as she called -to herself the Sussex officer and once came near calling him that -aloud), when she would come around the corner of a cabin and almost -run into Agnes Ertyle and Gerry Hull going about the deck in the -other direction; or she would pass them, seated close together and -with Lady Agnes all bundled up in steamer rugs, and Ruth would see -them suddenly stop talking when she and her escort came close, and -they would look away at the sea as though they had been just looking -at the water all the time.</p> - -<p>He would sit down beside Ruth, too; and he would take her around and -around the deck, tramping glowing, spray-splattered miles with him. -They talked a lot; but now they never really said anything to each -other. And it seemed to Ruth that each throb of those ceaseless -engines, which thrust them ever nearer and nearer to France, made -what she felt and believed more outrageous to him.</p> - -<p>One afternoon, when the wireless happened to be tuned to catch the -wavelength of messages sweeping over the seas from some powerful -sending station in Germany, they picked up the enemy’s boasts for -the day; and among them was the announcement that the famous -American “ace,” sergeant pilot Paul Crosby, had been shot down and -killed by a German flyer on the Lorraine front. It chanced that -Gerry Hull and Agnes Ertyle were in the main saloon near where Ruth -also was when some busybody, who had heard this news, brought it to -Gerry Hull and asked him if he had known Paul Crosby.</p> - -<p>Ruth knew that Gerry Hull and Paul Crosby had joined the French -flying forces together; they had flown in the same escadrille for -more than a year. She did not turn about, as others were doing, to -watch Gerry Hull when he got this news; but she could not help -hearing his simple and quiet reply, which brought tears to her eyes -as no sob or protestation of grief could; and she could not help -seeing him as he passed before her on his way out alone to the deck.</p> - -<p>She dreamed that night about being torpedoed; in the dream, the boat -was the <i>Ribot</i>; and upon the vessel there were—as almost always -there are in dreams—a perfectly impossible company. Besides those -who actually were on board, there were Sam Hilton and Lieutenant -George Byrne and “Aunt Emilie” and Aunt Cynthia Gifford Grange and -the woman in gray and a great many others—so many, indeed, that -there were not boats enough on the <i>Ribot</i> to take off all the -company as the ship sank. So Gerry Hull, after putting Lady Agnes in -a boat and kissing her good-bye, himself stepped back to go down -with the ship; and so, when all the boats were gone, he found Ruth -beside him; for she had known that he would not try to save himself -and she had hidden to stay with him. His arms were about her as the -water rose to them and—she awoke.</p> - -<p>Their U-boat really came; but with results disconcertingly -different. January, 1918—if you can remember clearly back to days so -strange and distant—was a month when America was sending across men -by tens rather than by hundreds of thousands and convoying them -very, very carefully; there were not so many destroyers as soon -there were; the U-boats had not yet raided far out into the -Atlantic—so fast and well-armed ships like the <i>Ribot</i>, which were -not transports, were allowed to proceed a certain part of the way -across unconvoyed, keeping merely to certain “lanes” on courses -prescribed by wireless.</p> - -<p>The <i>Ribot</i>, Ruth knew, was on one of these lanes and soon would be -“picked up” by the destroyers and shepherded by them into a convoy -for passage through the zone of greatest danger. In fact, Ruth and -Milicent Wetherell, who also had awakened early upon this particular -morning, were looking out of their port over a gray and misty sea to -discover whether they might have been picked up during the night and -now were in a convoy. But they saw no sign of any other vessel, -though the mist, which was patchy and floating low, let them look a -mile or more away. There was no smoke in sight—nothing but gray -clouds and the frayed fog and the sea swelling oilily up and -slipping down against the side of the ship.</p> - -<p>Then, about a hundred yards away from the side and rather far -forward, a spout of spray squirted suddenly straight up into the -air. It showered over toward the ship and splashed down.</p> - -<p>“That’s a shot,” Ruth said, “at us.”</p> - -<p>“Where’s the U-boat?” Milicent asked her; and they both pressed -closer to the port to look out. They had heard no sound of the gun, -or they did not distinguish it from the noises of the ship. Ruth was -shaking with excitement; she could feel Milicent shaking too. -Another spout of spray, still forward but a good deal closer, -spurted up; and this time they heard—or thought they heard—the sound -of the gun which had fired that shell at them. The roar of their own -guns—one forward and one aft—buffeted them violently.</p> - -<p>“We’re fighting!” Ruth cried.</p> - -<p>“Can you see anything?” Milicent demanded.</p> - -<p>“Not a thing. Let’s get dressed!”</p> - -<p>Gongs were beating throughout the ship; and the guns on deck were -going, “<i>Twumm! twumm! twumm!</i>” Ruth could hear, in the intervals, -the voices of stewards calling to passengers in the companionways -between the cabins. A tremendous shock, stifling and deafening, -hurled Ruth against the bunk; hurled Milicent upon her. They clung -together, coughing and gasping for breath.</p> - -<p>“Hit us!” Ruth said; she might have shouted; she might have -whispered; she did not know which.</p> - -<p>“That’s just powder fumes; not gas,” Milicent made herself -understood.</p> - -<p>“No; not <i>nauge de gaz</i>,” Ruth agreed. They were hearing each other -quite normally; and they laughed at each other—at the French lesson -phrase, rather. They had learned the phrases together, drilled each -other and taken the lessons so seriously; and the lessons seemed so -silly now.</p> - -<p>“They must have hurt someone,” Ruth said. For the first time she -consciously thought of Gerry Hull; probably subconsciously she had -been thinking of him all the time. “He wasn’t hit,” she was saying -to herself confidently now. “That shell struck us forward; his -cabin’s aft and on the other side; so he couldn’t have been -hurt—unless he’d come to this side to get Lady Agnes.”</p> - -<p>Another shell exploded in the ship—aft somewhere and lower. It -didn’t knock Ruth down or stifle her with fumes as the other had. -Someone was beating at her door and she opened it—Milicent and she -had got into their clothes. Ruth saw Hubert Lennon in the passage.</p> - -<p>“You’re safe!” he cried out to her with mighty relief. He had pulled -trousers and coat over his pajamas; he had shoes, unlaced, upon his -bare feet. He was without his glasses and his nearsighted eyes -blinked big and blankly; he had on a life-jacket, of the sort under -all berths; but he bore in his hands a complete life-suit with big -boots into which one stepped and which had a bag top to go up about -the neck.</p> - -<p>“Put this on!” he thrust it at Ruth.</p> - -<p>“We’re not sinking,” she replied. “Oh, thank you; thank you—but we -aren’t torpedoed—not yet. They’re just firing and we’re fighting—” -indeed she was shouting to be heard after the noise of their -guns—“we must have people hurt.”</p> - -<p>“We’ve a lot—a lot hurt,” Hubert said.</p> - -<p>Other shells were striking the ship; and Ruth went by him into a -passage confused with smoke and stumbly from things strewn under her -feet; a cabin door hung open and beyond the door, the side of the -ship gaped suddenly to the sea. The sides of the gap were jagged and -split and splintered wood; a ripped mattress, bedding, a man’s coat -and shirt, a woman’s clothing lay strewn all about; the bedding -smouldered and from under it a hand projected—a man’s hand. It -clasped and opened convulsively; Ruth stopped and grasped the hand; -it caught hers very tight and, still holding and held by it, Ruth -with her other hand cleared the bedding from off the man’s face. She -recognized him at once; he was an oldish, gentle but fearless little -man—an American who had been a missionary in Turkey; he and his -wife, who had worked with him, had been to America to raise money -for Armenian relief and had been on their way back together to their -perilous post.</p> - -<p>“Mattie?” the little man was asking anxiously of Ruth as he looked -up at her. “Mattie?”</p> - -<p>Mattie, Ruth knew, must have been his wife; and she turned back the -bedding beyond him.</p> - -<p>“She’s gone,” Ruth told him, mercifully thrusting him back as he -tried to turn about. “She’s gone where you are going.”</p> - -<p>The little missionary’s eyes closed. “The order for all moneys is in -my pocket. Luke VI, 27,” his lips murmured. “Luke VI, 27 and 35.”</p> - -<p>The hand which again was holding Ruth’s and which had been so strong -the instant before, was quiet now. “The sixth chapter of the gospel -according to St. Luke and the twenty-seventh verse,” the little -man’s voice murmured, “But I say unto you which hear, Love your -enemies.”</p> - -<p>Ruth covered his face decently with the sheet; and, rising, she -grasped the jagged edges of the hole blown by the German shell in -the side of the ship; and she stared out it. A mile and a half away; -two miles or more perhaps—she could not tell—but at any rate just -where the fringe of the mist stopped sight, she saw a long, low -shape scudding over the swell of the sea; puffs of haze of a -different quality hung over it, cleared and hung again. Ruth -understood that these were the gases from guns firing—the guns which -had sent that shell which had slain in their beds the little -Armenian missionary and his wife, the guns which were sending the -shells now bursting aboard the <i>Ribot</i> further below and more -astern. Ruth gazed at the U-boat aghast with fury—fury and loathing -beyond any feeling which she could have imagined. She had supposed -she had known full loathing when she learned of the first deeds done -in Termonde and Louvain; then she had thought, when the Germans sank -the <i>Lusitania</i>, that it was utterly impossible for her to detest -fellow-men more than those responsible. But now she knew that any -passion previously stirred within her was only the weak and vacuous -reaction to a tale which was told. She had viewed her first dead -slain by a fellow-man; and amazing, all overwhelming instincts—an -urge to kill, kill in return, kill in punishment, kill in -revenge—possessed her. She had not meant to kill before. She had -thought of saving life—saving the Belgians from more barbarities, -saving the lives of those at sea; she had thought of her task ahead, -and of the risks she was to run, as saving the lives of American and -British and French soldiers. For the first time she thought of -herself as an instrument to kill—kill Germans, many, many Germans; -all that she could.</p> - -<p>Someone had come into the wreck of that cabin behind her now. A -steward, probably; or perhaps Hubert Lennon, who had found her -again. She did not turn but continued to stare at the U-boat, her -hands clinging to the jagged hole made by its shell. A man’s hand -caught her shoulder and a voice spoke to her—Gerry Hull’s voice.</p> - -<p>“Come with me,” he was saying to her. “You cannot stay here; come to -a safer place.”</p> - -<p>“A safer place!” she repeated to him. “How can we help to kill them -on that boat?” she cried to him.</p> - -<p>He was undoing her fingers, by main strength, from their clutch at -the jagged iron of the shell hole. He was very calm and quiet and -strong; and he was controlling her as though she were a child.</p> - -<p>“They’re four thousand yards off,” he said to her. “That one there -and another on the other side. It’s just begun to fire.”</p> - -<p>Some of the shells which had been striking, Ruth realized now, had -burst on the other side of the <i>Ribot</i>.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said.</p> - -<p>“We’ve signaled we’re attacked,” he told her. He had both her hands -free; and he bound her arms to her body with his arms. “We’ve an -answer, and destroyers are coming. But they can’t get up before an -hour or two; so we’ve a long fight on. You must come below.”</p> - -<p>He was half carrying her, ignominiously; and it came to Ruth that, -before seeking her, he had gone to Agnes Ertyle; but she had not -delayed him because she was used to being under fire, used to seeing -those slain by fellow-men; used to knowing what she could and could -not do.</p> - -<p>“I’ll go where—I should,” Ruth promised, looking up at him; and he -released her.</p> - -<p>He pointed her toward a companionway where steps had led downward a -few minutes before; but now they were broken and smoke at that -moment was beginning to pour up. He turned and led her off to the -right; but a shell struck before them there and hurled them back -with the shock of its detonation. It skewed around a sheet of steel -which had been a partition wall between two cabins; it blew down -doors and strewed débris of all sorts down upon them. Another shell, -striking aft, choked and closed escape in the other direction. Gerry -Hull threw himself against the sheet of thin steel which the shell -so swiftly and easily had spread over the passage; but all his -strength could not budge it. He turned back to Ruth and looked her -over.</p> - -<p>“All right?” he asked her.</p> - -<p>“You are too?”</p> - -<p>He turned from her and gazed through the side of the ship. “They’ve -got our range pretty well, I should say. They’re still firing both -their guns, and we don’t seem to be hitting much.”</p> - -<p>He tried again to bend back the sheet of steel which penned them in -the passage, but with effort as vain as before.</p> - -<p>“I guess we stay here for a while,” he said when he desisted. “If we -don’t get help and it looks like we’re going to sink, we can always -dive through there into the sea.”</p> - -<p>A shell smashed in below and a few rods forward and burst with -terrific detonation.</p> - -<p>“Huns seem to like this part of the ship,” he said when the shock -was past.</p> - -<p>“That started something burning just below,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>Throughout the ship again, between the concussion of the striking -shells and the firing of the <i>Ribot’s</i> guns, alarm gongs were going.</p> - -<p>A woman screamed; men’s shouts came in answer. The rush of the -<i>Ribot</i> through the water, which had been swift and steady since the -start of the fight, suddenly swerved and the ship veered off to the -right.</p> - -<p>“What’s that?” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>“We may be zigzagging to dodge torpedoes,” Gerry Hull said. “Or it -may be that our helm is shot away and we can’t steer; or we may be -changing course to charge a sub in close.”</p> - -<p>A detonation closer than any before quite stunned Ruth for seconds -or minutes or longer—she did not know. Only when she came to herself -slowly, she was alone behind the sheet of steel. Gerry Hull was -gone.</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chVII' title='“One of Our Own!”'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER VII</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>“ONE OF OUR OWN!”</span> -</h2> - -<p>The deck floor just beyond her, where he had been, was gone; or -rather—as she saw now through the smoke—it slanted steeply down like -a chute into a chasm of indefinite depth from which the heavy, -stifling smoke was pouring. A draft sucked the smoke out of the -shattered side of the ship over the sea and gave Ruth cleaner air to -breathe for seconds at a time. Gerry Hull must have been hurled into -that chasm when that last detonation blew away the floor; or else he -must have flung himself into the sea.</p> - -<p>Ruth called his name, shouting first into the smoke column and then, -creeping down to the shell hole in the side, she thrust her head out -and gazed at the sea. Wreckage from the upper deck—wooden chairs, -bits of canvas—swept backwards; she saw no one swimming. The splash -of the waves dashed upon her, the ship was rushing onward, but not -so swiftly as before, and with a distinct change in the thrust of -the engines and with a strange sensation of strain on the ship. Only -one engine was going, Ruth decided—the port engine; it was being -forced faster and faster to do the work of both and the rudder was -pulled against the swerve of the port screw to keep the vessel from -swinging in a circle.</p> - -<p>The guns on deck were firing steadily, it seemed; but the German -submarine, which Ruth could see and which had begun to drop behind -when the <i>Ribot</i> was racing with both engines, was drawing up -abreast again with both its big rifles firing. But the <i>Ribot’s</i> -guns, if they had not yet hit that U-boat, at least had driven her -away; for, though she came up abreast, the German kept farther off -than before; and while Ruth watched, she heard a sudden, wild cheer -from the deck; French shells had gone home somewhere on that U-boat -or upon the other which Ruth could not see.</p> - -<p>Smoke continued to sweep by Ruth, engulfing her for long moments, -but the fire was far enough below not to immediately threaten her. -So for the minute she was as safe as she could be anywhere upon that -long flank of the ship at which the U-boats were firing. At any -instant, a shell might obliterate her; but she could not influence -that by any thought or action of her own. So she thought no more -about it. She could possibly influence the fate of Gerry Hull. He -had been flung down that chute of the deck floor, she thought; the -shell might have killed him; it might only have wounded or stunned -him. In that case, he must be lying helpless down there where the -flames were. She took long breaths of sea air and crept back and -called again into the smoke; she thought she heard a man’s cry in -response; Gerry Hull’s voice. She returned to the hole in the side -of the ship and let the waves drench her face and her hair; she -caught up her skirt and soaked it in the splash of the sea.</p> - -<p>The firing of the guns was keeping up all this time; the shock of -shells bursting aboard the ship also continued. But the tug and -thrust of the single engine had stopped; the vessel vibrated only at -the firing of its own guns or at the detonation of a German shell.</p> - -<p>Ruth took a towel which she found at her hand—she was in the wreck -of someone’s cabin—and, after soaking it, she bound it about her -head and crept back through the smoke to where the steel chute of -the floor slanted sheer.</p> - -<p>She dropped and fell upon a heap of sharp, shattered things which -cut her ankles and stumbled her over on hands and knees upon débris, -not flaming itself, but warm from a fire which burned lower. She -lifted the towel from her eyes to try to see; but the smoke blinded -her; she could not breathe; and she bound the towel again and -crawled off the heap of smoldering things upon a linoleum. She heard -a moan; but she could not find anyone in the smoke, though she -called thickly several times. A current of air was sweeping over the -floor and, following it, she came to a huge rent in the ship’s side -where water washed in and out as the vessel rolled. The water had -ceased to move from bow to stern; the vessel was merely drifting. A -man floated, face downward, upon a wave which washed him almost to -the ship’s side. Ruth reached out to seize him; she touched his -shoulder—a blue-clad shoulder, the uniform of the French; but she -could get no hold; the sea drew him slowly away.</p> - -<p>“Gerry Hull! Gerry!” she called, as though that form in the French -coat, with head under the water, could hear. The next wash brought -it back toward the ship; but also drifted it farther to the stern. -Now Ruth found among the rubbish washing at her feet a floating -thing—a lifejacket. She thrust her arms in it and when the waves -washed that blue-clad form nearer the next time, she leaped into the -sea and swam toward it and got grasp of a sleeve and struggled back -toward the ship.</p> - -<p>The vessel’s side towered above her, mighty and menacing; it swung -away from her, showing a long steep slant to the gray sky; it swung -back and tilted over as though to crush her; wreckage slipped from -off its topmost tier and splashed into the sea beside her. She could -see the cloud of gun gases puff out and clear; then the flash of -firing again. All the time she was thrashing with one arm to swim in -the wash beside the vessel and drag the blue-clad form. That form -was heavier now; and, as her clutch numbed, it slipped from her and -sank. She spun about and tried to dive, groping with her hands below -the surface; but the form was gone.</p> - -<p>“Gerry Hull!” she cried out. “I had Gerry Hull—here!”</p> - -<p>A coil of rope struck the water near her; men yelled to her to seize -it; but she groped below the water until, exhausted from the cold, -she looped the rope about her and they pulled her up.</p> - -<p>“Lieutenant Gerry Hull was in the water there,” she cried to them -who took her in their arms. “Lieutenant Gerry Hull is”—she shouted -to the next man who took her when, looking up, she saw his face.</p> - -<p>Silence—a marvelous stilling of the guns which had been resounding -from fore and aft; a miraculous stopping of the frightful shock of -the shells which had been bursting in the ship—enveloped Ruth. She -did not know at first whether it was because some of her senses were -gone; she could see Gerry Hull’s face, feel his arms holding her and -the rhythm of his body as he stepped, carrying her; she could hear -his voice and the voices of others close by; but all other sound and -reverberation had ceased.</p> - -<p>“I was separated from you,” Gerry Hull was explaining to her. “I was -coming back to try and get you out.”</p> - -<p>“I went down the way you fell,” she replied to him. “Then I saw a -man in the sea. I thought he was you. I tried to get him.”</p> - -<p>She was silent for a few moments while he carried her; the miracle -of stillness continued; but it was a great effort for her to speak.</p> - -<p>“I would have done it for anyone.”</p> - -<p>“I know you would,” he said to her.</p> - -<p>“You’ve seen Hubert?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“He’s not among the hurt,” Gerry answered.</p> - -<p>She was quite certain now that the stillness had continued so long -that it could not be merely the interval between firing or between -the arrival of German shells.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” she asked him.</p> - -<p>“What is what, Cynthia Gail?”</p> - -<p>He called her whole name, as he knew it, as she had been calling -his. “We’re not fighting,” she said. “We haven’t surrendered or—are -we sinking?”</p> - -<p>“A destroyer’s come in sight,” he said. “It’s fighting one of the -Huns. Listen!” He halted for an instant to let her hear the distant -sound of guns.</p> - -<p>“I hear it,” she said.</p> - -<p>“We hit that U-boat, we think, so that it can’t submerge and has to -keep fighting on the surface. The other’s submerged.”</p> - -<p>He brought her down a stairway into some large compartment, -evidently below the water line; it seemed to have been a dining -saloon for the steerage when the <i>Ribot</i> had been regularly in the -passenger trade; or perhaps it had been crews’ quarters. Now it was -a hospital; cots had been laid out and those who had been injured by -the shell fire had been brought there. They were a great many, it -seemed to Ruth—thirty or forty. She had never seen so many suffering -people, so many bandages, so much blood before. The ship’s surgeon -was moving among them; women were there—quiet, calm, competent -women. One had direction of the others and Ruth gazed at her for -moments before she recognized Agnes Ertyle with her beautiful, sweet -eyes become maturely stern and, at the same time, marvelously -compassionate. If Ruth were a man, she must love that girl, she -thought; love her now as never before. Ruth looked up to Gerry Hull -to see his face when he spoke to Lady Agnes; he evidently witnessed -no new marvel in her. He had seen her like this before, undoubtedly; -that was why he loved her.</p> - -<p>“I’m not hurt,” Ruth said, ashamed of herself for having been -brought to this place among so many who had been terribly wounded. -“I’ve just been in the water; I’m wet, that’s all.” She moved to -release herself from Gerry’s hold.</p> - -<p>“She went into the sea to save a man,” Gerry told Agnes Ertyle.</p> - -<p>“Let me go to the cabin,” Ruth said, as she stood a little dizzily.</p> - -<p>Lady Agnes grasped her hand. “If your cabin’s been wrecked, go to -mine—number twenty-six—and take any of my things,” she invited. “Get -dry and warm at once.”</p> - -<p>She motioned to someone who gave Ruth hot, strong tea to drink. -Gerry turned with Ruth and led her up the stairs down which he had -just carried her; he saw her to the door of her cabin, which had not -been wrecked; he saw that a stewardess was there to aid her. Then he -went.</p> - -<p>The stewardess helped Ruth undress and rubbed her and put on warm -and heavy things. Milicent Wetherell came to the cabin; she had -escaped uninjured, and she aided also.</p> - -<p>The rifles on the <i>Ribot’s</i> deck rang out suddenly; they fired -twice; again twice; and were still. Ruth had on warm, dry clothes -now; and she ran out with Milicent Wetherell to the deck. While the -<i>Ribot</i> had been under shell fire, passengers had been kept from the -decks; but now that the sole danger was from torpedoes, the decks -had become the safest place.</p> - -<p>The gun crews had seen—Ruth was told—what they thought was a -periscope and had fired. There was nothing in sight now near the -<i>Ribot</i> but the wreckage which had fallen during the fight. Far off -to the right, the U-boat which had continued to run on the surface, -had withdrawn beyond the range of the <i>Ribot’s</i> guns and was fleeing -away to the south, fighting as it fled. The morning light had quite -cleared the mist from the surface of the ocean and Ruth could see -the low line of the German boat obscuring itself with gun-gases as -its rifles fired. But its shells no longer burst aboard the -passenger vessel or spurted up spray from the sea alongside. Far, -far to the east and north appeared a speck—a gray, sea-colored -speck, sheathing itself in the sparkling white of foam every second -or so, casting the sheath of seaspray aside and rushing on gray and -dun again—the bow of the destroyer coming up. She was coming up very -fast—with a marvelous, leaping swiftness which sent the blood -tingling through Ruth.</p> - -<p>The destroyer seemed hurled through the water, so fast she came; it -seemed impossible that engines, turning screws, could send a ship on -as that vessel dashed; she seemed to advance hundreds of yards at a -leap, hurling the spray high before her and screened by it for a -flash; and when she thrust through the foam and cut clear away from -it, she was larger and clearer and nearer. And, as she came, she -fought. Her guns were going—one, two, three of them! Ruth could see -the gossamer of their gases as they puffed forward and were swept -backward; she could hear on the wind the resound of the quick -firers. Steadily, rhythmically, relentlessly they rang, beating over -the sea like great bells booming in vengeance for the <i>Ribot’s</i> -dead.</p> - -<p>Ruth felt lifted up, glorified as by nothing she had ever known -before. She turned to the man who had come up beside her; he was -Gerry Hull and, as he looked over the sea at the destroyer, she saw -the blood burning red, paling, and burning bright again in his face.</p> - -<p>“What ship is that?” Ruth cried to him. “Do you know whether it’s -English or French or our own?”</p> - -<p>“It’s the <i>Starke</i>!” Gerry Hull replied. “The <i>U. S. S. Starke</i>, she -reported herself to us! She made thirty-one knots the hour on her -builder’s trial two years ago; but she promised us to make the forty -miles to us in an hour and ten minutes! And she’s beating that, if I -know speed. God,” he appealed in reverent wonder, “look at her -come!”</p> - -<p>“The <i>United States Ship Starke</i>!” Ruth cried. “One of our own!”</p> - -<p>A wild, wanton, incredible phrase ran through her; “the shame of -being an American.” And, as she recalled it, she saw that Gerry Hull -recollected it too; and the hot color on his cheeks deepened and his -eyes, when they met hers, looked quickly away.</p> - -<p>“They’re wonderful, those fellows,” he admitted to her aloud. He -spoke, then, not to her, but to the destroyer. “But why couldn’t you -come three years ago?”</p> - -<p>A cry rose simultaneously from a lookout forward upon the <i>Ribot</i> -and from another man in the top. A periscope had appeared; and the -guns at once were going again at it. The radio, in the cabin -amidships, was snapping a warning to the <i>Starke</i>. The <i>Ribot’s</i> -guns and the splash of their shells into the sea gave the direction -to Ruth and to Gerry Hull; and they saw, for a flash, a spar moving -just above the water and hurling a froth before it, trailing a wake -behind. Indeed, it was probably only the froth and the wake which -they made out at all certainly; but that was discernible; and it -moved, not toward them, but aslant to them and pointed toward the -course of the American destroyer as it came up.</p> - -<p>“They’re trying to get the <i>Starke</i>!” Gerry Hull interpreted this to -Ruth. “The Huns are leaving us for later; they know they’ve got to -get the <i>Starke</i> or the <i>Starke</i> will get their other boat.”</p> - -<p>“The <i>Starke</i> saw them!” Ruth cried, as the guns on the destroyer, -which had been firing at the fleeing U-boat to the south, tore up -the sea where the <i>Ribot’s</i> shells were splashing.</p> - -<p>“The torpedo’s started by this time,” Gerry Hull said. “Two of ’em, -probably, if the Huns had two left.”</p> - -<p>Others about Ruth on the deck of the <i>Ribot</i> realized that; and the -commander of the <i>Starke</i> recognized it too. Ruth saw the leaping -form of the destroyer veer suddenly and point straight at the spot -in the sea where the U-boat had thrust up its periscope. This -presented the narrow beam of the destroyer, instead of its length, -for the torpedo’s target; but still Ruth held breath as on the -<i>Starke</i> came.</p> - -<p>Gerry Hull had thrust his wrist from his sleeve and, as they stood -waiting, he glanced down again and again to his watch. -“Passing—past!” he muttered to himself while he counted the time. -“The torpedoes have missed,” he announced positively to Ruth at -last.</p> - -<p>The commander of the <i>Starke</i> evidently thought so too; for the -length of his boat began to show again. His guns had ceased firing; -and the <i>Ribot’s</i> rifles also were silent. The destroyer, veering -still farther to the right, was dashing now almost at right angles -to its former course.</p> - -<p>“They’re going to cross the course of the Hun,” Gerry Hull explained -this also to Ruth, “and give ’em an ‘ashcan,’ I suppose—a depth -charge, you know,” he added.</p> - -<p>“I know,” Ruth said. She had read, at least, of the tremendous -bombs, filled with the new explosive “T. N. T.,” which the U-boat -hunters carried and which they dropped with fuse fixed to burst far -below the surface. One of these bombs, in size and shape near enough -to “ashcans” to win the nickname, was powerful enough—she knew—to -wreck an undersea craft if the charge burst close by.</p> - -<p>The <i>Starke</i> was still leaping on with its length showing to the -<i>Ribot</i> when two hundred yards or more astern the destroyer, a great -geyser of water leaped into the air fifty—a hundred feet; and while -the column of water still seemed to mushroom up and up, a tremendous -shock battered the <i>Ribot</i>.</p> - -<p>Someone shouted out in French while another called in English, -“Depth charge dropped from the destroyer!”</p> - -<p>“There was one ‘ashcan,’” Gerry Hull murmured. “Now for another!”</p> - -<p>For the <i>Starke</i>, as soon as the charge had detonated, had put her -helm about and was circling back with marvelous swiftness to cross -again the spot in the sea where she had dropped the great bomb.</p> - -<p>Men were below that spot of sea, Ruth knew—German men, fifty or -eighty or a hundred of them, perhaps. They were young men, mostly, -not unlike—in their physical appearance, at least—German-born boys -whom she had known at home in Onarga or in Chicago. Some of that -crew might, conceivably, even be cousins of those boys. They had -mothers and sisters in homes at Hamburg or Dresden or Munich or -perhaps in that delightful toy town of Nuremberg, which she knew and -had loved from pictures and stories; or some of them came, perhaps, -from the Black Forest—from those quaint, lovely homely woodland -cottages which Howard Pyle and Grimm had taught her to love when she -was a child. They were helpless down there below the sea at this -moment, perhaps, with the seams of their boat opened by that -tremendous shock which had battered even the <i>Ribot</i> so far away; -water might be coming in upon them, suffocating them, drowning them -there like rats in a trap. The vision flowed before Ruth’s eyes for -an instant with horror; then she saw them, not choking and fighting -each other for escape which none could find, but crouching safe and -smiling in their boat, stealing away swiftly and undamaged to wait -chance to rise again to try another torpedo at the <i>Starke</i> or to -surprise with gunfire, at the next dawn, another vessel like the -<i>Ribot</i> and murder more people in their beds and fill the space -below decks with the dead and the agonized dying.</p> - -<p>“Get ’em!” Gerry Hull, close beside her, was praying. “Oh, get ’em -now! Get ’em!”</p> - -<p>No reaction to weakness had come to him; years ago, he had passed -beyond that; and Ruth, at once, had recovered.</p> - -<p>“Get ’em!” Aloud, without being conscious of it, she echoed his -ejaculation; and astern of the <i>Starke</i>, as the few minutes before, -another great geyser of seawater arose; another titanic blow, -disseminating through the water, beat upon the <i>Ribot</i>. The <i>Starke</i> -was turning about short, again; but when she rushed back over her -wake, this time she dropped no other depth charge; she slowed a -little instead, and circled while she examined carefully the surface -of the sea. Then suddenly she straightened her course away to the -south; she buried her bow in a wave; with the rush of her -propellers, foam churned at her stern; she was at full speed after -the U-boat which she first had engaged and which, during this -interlude, had run quite out of sight to the south or had sunk or -submerged. While she pursued, her radio was reporting to the -<i>Ribot</i>; and the <i>Ribot’s</i> rasped in return.</p> - -<p>Oil in convincing quantities had come to the surface where the -<i>Starke</i> had dropped its charge. Of course, the Germans often pumped -oil out of their U-boats, when no damage had been done, for the -purpose of deceiving the hunters and making them think they had -destroyed a U-boat when they had not. But the officers of the -<i>Starke</i> had been satisfied with their findings; they would follow -up the other U-boat and then return. They understood that only two -U-boats had appeared to the <i>Ribot</i>; if another came or if either of -the two reappeared, the <i>Starke</i> would return instantly.</p> - -<p>No third enemy came; and neither of the others reappeared. In fact, -the <i>Starke</i> failed to find any further trace of the U-boat which, -for a time, had fought upon the surface and then run away. Either -the gunfire of the <i>Ribot</i> or of the <i>Starke</i> had so damaged it that -it suddenly sank, leaving no survivors; or—as the men aboard the -<i>Ribot</i> seemed to think was more likely—the crew succeeded in -repairing the damage done so that it was able to submerge and -escape. In this case, it might venture another attack, by torpedo, -upon the drifting <i>Ribot</i>; so the <i>Starke</i>, after abandoning the -search, put herself beside the <i>Ribot</i>. An American officer came -aboard, bringing with him a surgeon to aid in care of the <i>Ribot’s</i> -wounded; he brought also mechanics to assist the engine crew of the -<i>Ribot</i> in repairs and he supplied, from his own crew, men to take -the places of the <i>Ribot’s</i> crew who had been killed.</p> - -<p>Ruth watched the young lieutenant—he was few years older than Gerry -Hull or herself—as he went about his business with the officers of -the <i>Ribot</i>. If any shame for recreancy of his country had ever -stirred him, it had left no mark; he was confident and competent—not -proud but quite sure of himself and of his service. She looked for -Gerry Hull to see whether he observed this one of their people; she -looked to see whether Captain Forraker and “1582” also saw him. And -she found that “1582” was the first to make opportunity to meet the -American officer and compliment him.</p> - -<p>“You chaps might have been blowing up U-boats for a thousand years!”</p> - -<p>The pounding and hammering in the engine rooms was resulting in -thrust again from the port engine. The <i>Ribot</i> started under steam -and ran through an area of water all iridescent with floating oil. -Bits of wood and cloth scraps floated in the oil—bits which men -scooped up to preserve for proof that the depth charges, which the -<i>Starke</i> had dropped there, had burst and destroyed a German -submarine.</p> - -<p>Gerry Hull had gone below to look into the hospital again. Ruth had -offered to aid there but, having no experience, she was not -accepted. So Hubert Lennon found her on deck and went to the rail -with her while they watched the recovery of these relics from the -sea. It had been his first experience, as well as hers, with the -frightful mercilessness of modern battle; he had been made sick—a -little—by what he had seen. He could not conceal it; his sensitive, -weak eyes were big; he was very pale; his hand was unsteady as he -lit a cigarette.</p> - -<p>“Queer—isn’t it?—queer that they should want to do what they’ve done -below and we have no feeling at all about them.” He was gazing down -at the oil, shimmering all colors of the rainbow as the waves -flickered it against the light.</p> - -<p>“You’ve none at all?” Ruth asked, looking up at him.</p> - -<p>“I had none at the time we were after them; but I’m afraid,” he -confessed with that honesty which Ruth had learned to expect from -him, “the idea of them gets to me now. Not that I wouldn’t kill them -all again! Oh, I’d kill! I’ve dreamt sometimes of being surrounded -by ’em and having a machine gun and mowing Germans down—mowing ’em -down till there wasn’t one left. But it always seemed such an -inadequate thing to do. It ought to be possible to do more—I don’t -mean torture them physically, of course; but to make them innocuous -somehow and let them live and think about what they’ve done. There -couldn’t be anything more terrible than that.”</p> - -<p>“We’ve succeeded in doing that sometimes,” Ruth said. “We’ve taken -prisoners even from their U-boats; but they don’t seem to be -troubled much with remorse. It would be different for you and for -men like you; but that’s because you couldn’t do what they’ve done.”</p> - -<p>“Sometimes I feel that I could to them. So I guess it’s a good thing -I’m going to be an ambulance driver. To fight them and keep fighting -fair and clean yourself—well it must take more stuff than I’ve got.”</p> - -<p>Ruth did not know quite what to make of this confession. Constantly, -since that first day when he called for her at the hotel in Chicago, -he had been paying his peculiar sort of court to her—peculiar, -particularly, in that he never obtruded himself when anyone else -offered and he never failed to admit anything against himself.</p> - -<p>“It was fine of you, Hubert,” she said, “to come right for me when -the fight began.”</p> - -<p>“I thought we were sinking; that’s how much sense I had,” he -returned. “Gerry, now, knew just what to do.”</p> - -<p>“He didn’t come for me first, Hubert.”</p> - -<p>“Maybe not; but you wished he had; I’m glad,” he went on quickly -before she could rejoin, “that this has taught Gerry a few things.”</p> - -<p>It was evident from his manner that he meant “things” in relation to -her; and that puzzled her, for she could not feel any alteration in -Gerry Hull’s manner at all. To be sure, she had gone into the sea to -try to rescue one whom she thought was he; Gerry Hull knew this. But -that was not the sort of thing which could undo the opposition -between them. Yet it was plain, upon succeeding days, that Hubert -had discerned a fact; she had become again a person of real concern -to Gerry Hull.</p> - -<p>She dated the start of that rehabilitation of herself not with her -adventure in the sea or with the moment when he carried her in his -arms; but with that instant when they stood together watching the -<i>U. S. S. Starke</i> come up. That rehabilitation proceeded fast the -next days when, after the <i>Ribot</i> had repaired both engines, the -<i>Starke</i> brought the ship into a convoy—a fleet of some thirty -merchant vessels of all sorts and under a dozen flags, belligerent -and neutral, guarded and directed by a flotilla of American -destroyers, with the senior American officer in command of all the -convoy.</p> - -<p>British trawlers joined them soon, adding their protection; two of -the destroyers sent up balloons which they towed; and now, by day, -British and French dirigible balloons and British and French and, -yes, American seaplane pilots appeared. And no submarine, in those -waters supposed to be infested with U-boats, once showed a -periscope. By day and night, the patrol and protection of those -American destroyers proved perfect. So by that protection they came -at last to France.</p> - -<p>Gerry sought out Ruth upon the last morning when they would be on -shipboard. It was a smiling, sunny day, warm for that time in the -year. In addition to the ships of the sea and air which recently had -accompanied them constantly, strange little business-like boats -approached, airplanes from the land spied upon them; and as they -drew near to the port, Ruth got amazing sight of the multifold -activities of even this still distant threshold to war.</p> - -<p>“You’re going to Paris right away?” Gerry asked.</p> - -<p>“As soon as I can get through.”</p> - -<p>“We’ll get a train that’ll probably bring us in at night. If you’ve -not made arrangements ahead——”</p> - -<p>“I have, thanks; rather Hubert’s offered to see to me; besides his -aunt gave me letters to cousins of hers who’ve been living in Paris -for years. They’re Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Mayhew; they’ve an apartment -on the Avenue Kléber. I’m to go there my first night anyway.”</p> - -<p>“That’s good. I’ve heard of the Mayhews; they’ve done a lot all -during the war. Then can I look you up at the Mayhews’ when I’m in -Paris? I hope for service right away, of course; but Paris is close -for our leave always.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’ll not stay at the Mayhews’ or on Avenue Kléber! I’m to find -a room with Milicent Wetherell.”</p> - -<p>“So you’ll carry out your Latin Quarter plan! That’s better! But -you’ll leave the address, anyway, at the Mayhews’?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” Ruth promised.</p> - -<p>She took the opportunity to ask him many practical, matter-of-fact -items which she needed to know—particularly about the examinations -to be made upon arrival in France.</p> - -<p>“My passport’s almost ruined, you see,” she explained to him.</p> - -<p>“Why? What’s happened?”</p> - -<p>Ruth colored. “I always carried it with me; so it got soaked in the -sea the other day.”</p> - -<p>Color came to his face too; that had happened when she went into the -water to get him, of course. She would not have reminded him of it -but that she knew she well might need help no less influential than -his to pass the gateway to France.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” he said. “How’s it spoiled?”</p> - -<p>“My picture on it, mostly.”</p> - -<p>“Oh; that’ll be all right! You’ll just have to have another picture -taken in France and have them paste it on. I’ll tell ’em about it -and see you through, of course.”</p> - -<p>Accordingly Ruth went to her cabin and, after bolting the door -against even Milicent Wetherell, she got out her passport which -really had been wet by the sea but not soaked so badly that the -picture was useless. Indeed, the picture was still plain enough so -that a French intelligence officer might make out that it was not -Ruth. So she soaked it again in water until that danger was past; -then she dried it and took it with her to present at the port.</p> - -<p>“I’ve told Agnes Ertyle all about your passport,” Gerry Hull said to -her when she came on deck again, “so she’ll help you out if they put -the women through first. They have to be awfully careful in France -these days about spies, you see—especially now—spies from America.”</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chVIII' title='France'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER VIII</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>FRANCE</span> -</h2> - -<p>Fear—so Ruth was finding out—is a most complicated and perplexing -sensation. What she had learned about fear, upon those infrequent -occasions when causes of alarm approached that queer, humdrum, -almost forgotten girl who used to work for Sam Hilton, had made it -appear a simple emotion to bring about a rational reaction. One fear -differed from another chiefly in degrees of effect; you might be a -little afraid of something—like having your skirt caught in an -elevator door when the car started up too crowded; having a rough -looking man suddenly accost you when you were hurrying back to -Ontario Street late in a winter evening, caused more alarm; and -there were other occurrences which had frightened still more. The -amount of fear you felt—and the force of the corresponding -reaction—seemed generally proportional to the danger threatening -you; but now Ruth had been through an adventure—battle—which had -menaced her life to a far greater degree than any previous -experience; and she had not been afraid, in the old sense of fear. -Emotions had tortured her—emotions far more violent and furious than -ever she had suffered; but fear for her life had not been chief -among them. Committed to battle, as she had been by the mere fact of -her presence aboard the <i>Ribot</i>, the instant realization that -nothing she could do could save her had amazingly freed her from -fear.</p> - -<p>Fear, then, was not made up just of a dread of death. Now that the -<i>Ribot</i> was safely in from the Bay of Biscay, had passed the Phare -de Cordouan and was running down the broad, flat estuary of the -Gironde river to Bordeaux, securely situated sixty long miles -inland, Ruth was in no danger of death at all. If at that city, -whose roofs and chimneys were just coming into sight, the French -examiners found out how she had obtained her passport, how she had -duped and tricked people to aid her in arriving here, and if they -arrested her, therefore, upon the charge of being a German spy, they -would be making her life safe; her punishment probably would not go -beyond imprisonment for the duration of the war; it would prevent -her wild plan of going into Germany, where court-martials did not -simply imprison spies. Yet Ruth was afraid this morning as she had -never been before; far, far more afraid than when she had been in -battle.</p> - -<p>That meant, obviously, that she was far more afraid of failing to do -that which she was determined upon than she was afraid of dying. -Less than three weeks earlier, when Ruth Alden was drawing up -quit-claims and deeds for Sam Hilton in Chicago, such a recognition -of the fact in regard to oneself would have seemed—even if spoken -only to self—ostentatious and theatrical; but now to make the fate -of yourself nothing, the performing of your part in the great scheme -everything, was the simple and accepted code of almost everyone -about her.</p> - -<p>Exactly when Ruth had begun to accept this code for herself, she did -not know. Once or twice in her twenty-two years she had encountered -emergencies when one person or two—or very, very few, at most—acted -without regard to consequence to themselves; but always they did -this for the saving of more serious catastrophe to a greater number -of persons who were present; so that even upon those occasions the -highest purpose was plain self-preservation. But now Ruth had become -a member of a society not chiefly charged with preserving -itself—whose spirit, indeed, was disregard of self. She had come -from a society in which the discovery that a certain project was not -“safe” and would lead one to certain destruction was enough to -immediately end that project, into a hemisphere where the certainty -of death made no difference and was simply not to be discussed.</p> - -<p>It was not from fear of punishment, therefore, that Ruth’s heart was -fluttering as the <i>Ribot</i> drew up to the docks at Bordeaux; it was -from terror at thought of no longer being permitted to be one of -such a company as that upon this ship.</p> - -<p>Men were directing the passengers to arrange themselves for -presentation of their credentials to the French authorities; and -Ruth found Lady Agnes taking her place beside her. The English girl -was well known and, after merely formal inquiry and the signing of a -few papers, she was passed on. She made a statement for Ruth of the -reasons for Ruth’s passport being in bad condition; and she -mentioned what she knew about Ruth. The Frenchmen attended politely, -but they did not, therefore, take chances. They examined her -passport far more carefully than they had Agnes Ertyle’s; but Ruth -had so ruined the picture that identification by it was impossible. -The sea water also had helped to blur the signature so that her -“Cynthia Gail” which they made her sign, and which they compared -with the name upon the passport, escaped open challenge. Then there -were questions.</p> - -<p>The man who asked them referred to cards in an index box which, -evidently, had come across upon the <i>Ribot</i>; for his inquiries -referred largely to questions which had been asked Ruth upon the -other side. She, fortunately, had had sense enough to have written -down for herself the answers which she had given at New York; she -had rehearsed them again and again; so now she did not fail to give -similar replies. Then there were other inquiries—sudden, startling -ones, which gave her consternation; for they seemed based upon some -knowledge of the real Cynthia Gail which Ruth did not have. But she -had to answer; so she did so as steadily as possible and as -intelligently as she could.</p> - -<p>The examiner gazed more keenly at her now; he halted his examination -to confer in whispers with an associate; he made careful notation -upon a card. A clerk brought in a cablegram, which the examiner -carefully read. Had the body of Cynthia Gail been identified in -Chicago? Had her family found out the fraud which Ruth had been -playing upon them; or had other discovery been made so that the -French knew that she was an impostor?</p> - -<p>The man looked up from the cablegram.</p> - -<p>“You have been in France before?” he challenged.</p> - -<p>Ruth had thought of being asked that question. She had told Gerry -Hull at Mrs. Corliss’ that she had been in France—or at least she -had let him suppose so when he said that, of course, she had been in -Paris. She did not know at all whether Cynthia Gail had or not; but -that statement to Gerry Hull—which he might have repeated—committed -her.</p> - -<p>“Not since the war began,” she answered.</p> - -<p>“Previous to then?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Upon how many occasions?”</p> - -<p>“Once,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>“When was that?”</p> - -<p>Ruth had figured out several occasions when Cynthia Gail might have -come abroad—if she really ever had done so. “The summer of 1913.”</p> - -<p>“When did you land?”</p> - -<p>“Late in June; I don’t recall the exact date.” She fixed June, as -she supposed Cynthia Gail would have come during summer vacation.</p> - -<p>“Where did you land?”</p> - -<p>“Dieppe. I crossed from New York on the <i>Adriatic</i> of the White Star -Line to Plymouth for England first; then I crossed to France by -Newhaven-Dieppe.” She had picked up a good deal on board the -<i>Ribot</i>, you see.</p> - -<p>“Visiting what places in France?”</p> - -<p>“I spent most of my time in Paris; I was with my parents. We stayed -at the Hotel Regina.” Gerry Hull had said he supposed she had been -at the Regina or the Continental.</p> - -<p>The readiness of these answers seemed to somewhat reassure the -examiner.</p> - -<p>“You have friends in France?”</p> - -<p>“Only acquaintances such as one makes traveling; no one whom I could -now place. I’ve letters to Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Mayhew, of Avenue -Kléber. I did not know them when I was in France before.”</p> - -<p>The examiner made notations on his card.</p> - -<p>“Report at your first opportunity, if you please, to your consul -general at Paris and obtain a passport in place of this!” He was -writing upon her passport now and handing it back to her! Whatever -reservation of judgment he had made in regard to her; whatever -orders he might give to watch her pending verification of her facts, -he was passing her on and permitting her to go with the others to -take the afternoon train to Paris!</p> - -<p>She saw to customs and let Hubert order the transfer of her luggage; -then she was free upon the streets of her first foreign city. Not -for long; because the train for Paris left soon. But Hubert hired a -queer old cab, driven by a white-haired, Gallicly garrulous man, who -quickly understood that they were less interested in the wide -magnificence of the modern city than in the labyrinths of the old -town with its white, huddled houses facing quaint, gayly painted -shops about irregular squares, and looming at one another over the -narrowest of mediaeval streets.</p> - -<p>They halted the cab and walked down the delightful defiles. Ruth had -to remember, in her raptures, that she was supposed to have been in -France before; but there were moments when Hubert left her—he -understood that she wanted to experience some of this alone—when the -incredible wonder that she was abroad overwhelmed her. She had -cabled, of course, to Cynthia Gail’s parents in Decatur; but she -wanted to cable her own mother to tell her where she was, and to buy -the pretty, picturesque postal cards, and send them to her sisters; -she wanted to write some of the wonder to all her friends; she would -have included even a card to Sam Hilton. But all that was -impossible.</p> - -<p>Then the sight of French soldiers on the narrow streets and the -many, many French women in mourning—mothers and widows—returned her -to the grim, terrible business which had brought her here. She -rejoined Hubert where he had been waiting for her at the end of a -twisty, shadowy little street; he had bought a French newspaper; and -when she came beside him, he glanced up at her gravely.</p> - -<p>“They’ve sunk a transport with American troops, Cynthia,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Where? How many of our soldiers—?” she cried.</p> - -<p>“The <i>Tuscania</i> to the north of Ireland; torpedoed when we were at -sea. Two or three hundred of our men are missing; they don’t know -exactly how many yet.”</p> - -<p>The news had reached the others of the <i>Ribot’s</i> passengers, who -were taking the same train for Paris that afternoon. Ruth shared a -compartment in the little European-gauged cars, with Milicent -Wetherell and two French women; but the train was a “corridor -train,” as Ruth learned to say, and the occupants of the different -compartments could visit one another much as they might in the -larger American cars. There was news of recent air raids upon -Paris—one raid had been most deadly and destructive; there was news -of various sorts from the French and British fronts—a little news -also from the short American sectors; for it was announced that the -Americans had taken over a new portion of the line in Lorraine. But -the report of the successful attack of the U-boats upon the -<i>Tuscania</i> overshadowed all other news.</p> - -<p>It was not alone the loss of the hundreds of American soldiers; it -was the ugly threat that, where the U-boats at last had succeeded in -sinking a transport out of a convoy, they might succeed again and, -as the Germans had been boasting, they might—they just possibly -might cut that bridge of ships really beginning this month to bring -America over the seas. Ruth thrilled with discovery at how these -people here in France had come to count upon the arrival of her -people. She talked not only with the acquaintances from the <i>Ribot</i>, -but Milicent and she practiced their French upon the polite and -patient ladies from Bordeaux.</p> - -<p>Ruth thus found that these French women were relieved that the -<i>Tuscania</i> was not an American ship and had not been under convoy of -American destroyers when it was lost.</p> - -<p>“They have the most appalling faith in us!” Ruth reported this to -Gerry when he stopped to speak with her during the afternoon. “They -think we can do anything; that we cannot fail!”</p> - -<p>“That’s their way,” he warned. “We’re the new ally. The British must -have done wonders to get off all but two hundred men from a crowded -transport going down in a heavy sea.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t mean that we could have done more,” Ruth said, “or that we -could have saved the <i>Tuscania</i>; I’m just glad people can believe so -in us. But it puts upon us an awful responsibility to make good.”</p> - -<p>“It does,” Gerry agreed, laconically, and went on.</p> - -<p>The train pulled into Poitiers—Poitiers of the battle of the Black -Prince in her <i>Green’s English History</i>! It ran on to Tours! Now the -names of even the little towns, as they neared Paris, were -familiarly full of legend and romance.</p> - -<p>Hubert Lennon “looked by” in the evening, as he often had during the -day; and, as Milicent was visiting elsewhere just then, he sat down -beside Ruth.</p> - -<p>She observed at once that something was troubling him—not a matter -which had affected him suddenly, but rather an uncertainty which -seemed to have been progressing for some time. He remained beside -her silent for several minutes while they looked out at the lights -of the little French hamlets. Finally he asked her in quite an -ordinary tone, so that the French women could not suspect any -challenge:</p> - -<p>“You remember motoring down this way to Blois and Tours, and then -that run down the valley of the Loire?”</p> - -<p>Ruth startled a little straighter and gazed out at the darkness -without answering. If Gerry Hull had asked her such a question she -would have bluffed the answer boldly; but Hubert had interrogated -her for a purpose; and he knew something of what Cynthia Gail had -done and had not done. Suddenly it dawned upon Ruth that that time, -nine years earlier, when Hubert had last seen Cynthia Gail, was not -in Chicago, as she had supposed, but here in France.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I remember,” she replied weakly and without looking about.</p> - -<p>“Your father and mother were with you, and my father—he was alive -then—and I; and who else was along?” he questioned, as though quite -casually, but Ruth knew that this was a test.</p> - -<p>“I—don’t remember,” she faltered. She doubted whether Cynthia Gail -had been with him on any such trip; the whole question might merely -be a catch; well, if he suspected her and wanted to catch her, -certainly he had her. Her progress from the moment of her appearance -as Cynthia Gail had been made possible—she recognized—because of his -unsuspecting acceptance of her. That had won for her championship in -more powerful quarters which, in turn, had gained her favor more -influential still; yet the whole pyramid of that favor balanced on -the point of Hubert’s original acceptance.</p> - -<p>So she sat in the dark awaiting what this strange friend of hers -should determine to do.</p> - -<p>The French women in the opposite seats conversed between themselves. -The train was drawing into Paris, they said. The rapid rattle of -railroad joints and crosstracks confirmed this to Ruth, as well as -the more frequent noise of engines passing; she could see, too, low -shaded signal lights. But the environs of Paris had become more -black than the villages of the south; this was from danger of -repetition of the severe air raids of which Ruth had heard at -Bordeaux.</p> - -<p>The train stopped; not at a station, nor did guards open the doors. -Everything was black without; the few lights, which Ruth had been -viewing, either had not been necessary thereabouts, or else they had -been extinguished; and, with the stilling of the train noise, a -weird, wailing moan rose through the night air.</p> - -<p>“A siren!” Hubert said to Ruth. The French women, too, had -recognized the warning of a raid. A blast of a horn blew a loud -staccato <i>alerte</i>; and the siren—it evidently was on some -fast-driven car—diminished in the distance, wailing. Far off, but -approaching closer, sounded deep, rolling reverberations; not like -guns—Ruth knew guns now; nor yet like shells such as had burst on -board the <i>Ribot</i>. They were aerial torpedoes, of tremendous -violence, detonating in Paris buildings or upon the city streets. -Guns were going now; and their shells were smashing high in the air.</p> - -<p>Ruth could see the flash of their break against the gleaming stars -of the clear, cold sky; she could see rockets and glaring flares. -The sound of the guns and the smash of the shells in the sky -redoubled; a mighty flash lit the ground a half mile or more away -across the railroad yards; it threw in brilliant silhouette for a -second, roofs, trees, chimneys against a crimson inferno of flame.</p> - -<p>Hubert had the window open; and Ruth and the French women were -kneeling side by side to look out and up. They could see little -lights in the sky now; they could hear, between the smash of shells, -the hum of airplane motors and the rattle of brief bursts of -machine-gun fire.</p> - -<p>Airplanes of defense were up there fighting the Germans—French -piloted those machines. But there might be Americans fighting there, -too. Ruth had read that once or twice American pilots had been among -those honored with the defense of Paris. She did not know whether it -was true; she had meant to ask Gerry Hull.</p> - -<p>A few yards away in another compartment of another car—probably in -the compartment where Lady Agnes sat—Ruth knew that he was kneeling -before a window also gazing out; and she knew that the helpless -impulse which stirred her with desire to be out there above to fly -and fight was surging through him a thousand times intensified. She -could feel even Hubert Lennon twist and sway at struggle with that -impulse; how much more was Gerry Hull’s lithe, powerful body—that -strong, rhythmically moving form which had carried her—straining now -to join his comrades there above and to strike.</p> - -<p>A flare of flame, not sharp and jagged like the burst of shells, nor -yet the streak of a rocket, nor like the glaring spot of a signal -light, wavered across the stars. Something clouded it—smoke. It -flung free from the smoke and dived, flaring bigger and brighter, -trailing behind it a streamer of black which blanketed both rockets -beyond and the stars; it dived on, burning.</p> - -<p>Ruth’s heart throbbed like a hammer in her throat. “<i>Chute d’un -aéroplane!</i>” the French women cried.</p> - -<p>“Fall of an airplane!”</p> - -<p>It had been hit! The gasoline tank had ignited; it was going down in -flames. Whether friend or foe, no one on the train could know. Cries -reached Ruth from other compartments in the car. Everyone was seeing -it as it dropped down now faster and faster, its head burning -whiter; its streamer of smoke longer and broader before the stars. -The line of roofs and chimneys off to the south, which had shown in -glaring silhouette, sucked it from sight. It had crashed; and a -shudder shocked through Ruth as she pictured the pilot. She wanted -Gerry Hull beside her to know that he was safe; her hand groped in -the dark, without her will. It encountered Hubert’s and found his -trembling and cold.</p> - -<p>“They’re going away, I think,” he said to reassure her.</p> - -<p>The detonations of the torpedoes dropped upon the city surely were -less; the guns diminished their fire; the flashes in the sky were -farther away; and the hum of the airplane motors and the bursts of -machine-gun fire no longer were to be heard.</p> - -<p>A bugle from somewhere blew a none-too-confident “All clear.” The -train moved on and drew after midnight into the darkened Gare du -Quai-d’Orsay.</p> - -<p>It composed for Ruth a far different entrance to Paris than any she -had dreamed—the dark, almost deserted railroad station as a center -of an expanse vague and doubtful under the starlit city haze. A man -who repeated, “Mees Seenthya Gaiil” and “Meester Huber’ Len<i>non</i>,” -in patient, respectful intoning, stood at the gates from the train. -He had a car, toward which he escorted Ruth and Milicent (who, Ruth -insisted, must not try to find a place for herself that night) and -Hubert.</p> - -<p>Several of the <i>Ribot’s</i> men came and said good-bye to Ruth and -Milicent again and made last memoranda of how they could later be -located. Gerry Hull appeared and, in her brief moment with him, Ruth -marveled at the change in him. The air raid and the view of his -comrades fighting again and, too, this nearness of his return to -duty had banished all boyishness from him; a simple sternness -suddenly had returned him to a maturity which made her wonder how -she ever could have assumed to scold and correct him as once she -had.</p> - -<p>He saw that Ruth and Milicent passed the formalities at the <i>gare</i>. -He ascertained that they had a vehicle; he brought to Ruth Lady -Agnes’ farewell and offer of assistance at any time. Then, saluting, -he said good-bye and they drove off.</p> - -<p>Their car was keeping along the Quai-d’Orsay at first with the Seine -glinting below on the right. They passed a bridge.</p> - -<p>“Pont de Solférino,” Hubert said.</p> - -<p>They turned across the next bridge—“Pont de la Concorde!”</p> - -<p>That brought to Ruth’s right the Garden of the Tuileries! They were -in the Place de la Concorde; they turned into the Champs-Elysées! It -was little more than a vague wideness of speeding shadows; but -Ruth’s blood was warm and racing. Hubert spoke to her, and when she -replied she knew that if he had questioned before whether she had -been previously in Paris he could not wonder now. But he spoke to -her as if she had, calling names of the places quietly to Milicent -rather than to her.</p> - -<p>The car swerved into the Place de l’Etoile.</p> - -<p>“The Arc-de-Triomphe!” Hubert cried. Ruth bent and saw its looming -bulk; they were upon the Avenue Kléber now and the car soon was -halting.</p> - -<p>A single light burned in the hallway of a building of apartments -handsomer than any Ruth ever had seen; a door upon a second floor -opened and an American man and woman welcomed “Cynthia Gail” as Ruth -had never been welcomed anywhere in her life. These hospitable -people—they were Aunt Emilie’s cousins, the Mayhews—welcomed Hubert, -too, of course, and Milicent.</p> - -<p>Ruth lay that night in a beautiful bed of gold and blue—the most -grateful, the most excited, the most humble and -insignificant-feeling girl in all France. When she had started out -upon this adventure in America she had seemed to herself to be -seizing an opportunity ordained for her by fate and entrusted to her -as the instrument for a great deed; now the fact that she was here, -and had come with an idea that she could greatly do, seemed the most -assuming conceit in the world.</p> - -<p>The next morning when she went out upon the avenues in the uniform, -which now she was to wear constantly, the pettiness of her part -reimpressed itself with every square she passed as she witnessed the -throngs of soldiers—of a dozen races, of innumerable -nations—gathered for the war. She went with Hubert to the American -consulate, where she applied for a new passport to replace the -ruined one; then, proceeding alone to the office where Cynthia Gail -was to report, she accepted gladly the simple, routine duties -assigned her.</p> - -<p>That same day she and Milicent found a room in a <i>pension</i> upon the -Rue des Saints Pères, where Hubert and Mrs. Mayhew called upon her -the next evening. But if Gerry Hull had inquired for her at the -Mayhew’s, his inquiry resulted in no visit to the Rue des Saints -Pères. Lieutenant Gerry Hull was transferred—so Ruth read in a -<i>Matin</i> of the next week—to the American forces and was flying now -under his own flag. And with his return to duty it seemed that he -must have lost concern for a girl satisfied to do half-clerical, -half-charity relief work among refugees in Paris.</p> - -<p>Of course Ruth did not think of herself as merely doing such work; -she considered herself as waiting for further instructions from the -Germans.</p> - -<p>The orders which she had received from the spy in Chicago had -directed her to take up this work of Cynthia Gail’s; and only by -following these orders could she hope to carry out her plan.</p> - -<p>She found far more talk of German agents, and far more certainty of -their activities, in Paris than she had heard about in Chicago. The -difference was that while in Chicago the presence and the activities -of German spies was extraordinary, here it was the everpresent and -accepted thing—like the arrival of trains of wounded from the front -and air raids upon clear nights. She learned that the Germans -undertook no important enterprise without information from their -agents in France; she learned that, as in America, these agents were -constantly being taken. It was plain to her, therefore, that they -could scarcely have any rigid organization or any routine method of -reports or intercommunication. They must operate by creating or -seizing sudden opportunities.</p> - -<p>During the noon hour upon a day in the middle of February, Ruth left -the relief rooms, where she had been working, to wander in the -winter sunlight by Notre Dame, where bells were ringing for some -special mass. She went in and stood in the nave, listening to the -chants, when she observed a gentleman of about fifty, evidently a -Parisian, go to a pew beyond her and kneel down. She noticed him -because she had seen him at least twice before when she was coming -out of her office, and he had observed her with keener glance than -gentlemen of his apparent station were accustomed to bestow.</p> - -<p>She went from the cathedral after a few minutes and wandered up the -Rue St. Jacques toward the Sorbonne, when the same man suddenly -appeared about a corner and—a rather gusty wind was blowing—his hat -left his head and blew toward Ruth. She stooped quickly and picked -it up.</p> - -<p>He thanked her effusively in French and, observing that she was an -American in uniform, he extended compliments upon the participation -of America, which made it impossible for Ruth to go on at once. -Suddenly, and without change in his tone, he inquired her name.</p> - -<p>“Cynthia Gail,” she gave it, without thinking anything in -particular.</p> - -<p>“From what city?” he inquired.</p> - -<p>“Decatur, Illinois.”</p> - -<p>“You are to make effort at once to leave Paris to go to the district -of Roisel. Never mind the Americans; there will be few there. -Observe British dispositions; of their Fifth Army; their -headquarters; what forces in reserve present; what movements -indicating a lengthening of their front. Return here after two -weeks; not later than three. It is the wonder of America, observe!” -he proceeded in the same tone as a man went by, “that it saves not -only my country, my civilization, but even, for me, my hat! I thank -you again, Mademoiselle. <i>Bon jour!</i>” He bowed and was off.</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chIX' title='To Picardy'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER IX</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>TO PICARDY</span> -</h2> - -<p>Ruth stood galvanized for a second. The man, beyond doubt, was a -German agent; he had addressed her as a spy. There was no other -possible explanation.</p> - -<p>When the woman at Mrs. Corliss’ had disclosed herself as an enemy, -Ruth had balanced the harm the woman might do to America against the -harm she, herself, might do Germany, and Ruth had decided, rightly -or wrongly, to remain quiet. Now she could not do so. A German spy -in Chicago was a distant, only indirectly dangerous person; a spy in -Paris did most direct things—such as setting colored lights at the -bottoms of chimneys to guide the great black-crossed <i>Gothas</i> which -bombed Paris by night, blowing down those buildings in the ruins of -which Ruth had seen men frantically digging by the early morning -light; they did things such as ... Ruth did not delay to catalog in -that flash the acts of Germans in Paris. She knew that man must be -arrested at whatever cost to herself.</p> - -<p>She started after him down the Rue St. Jacques in the first spur of -this impulse. Fortunately, after leaving her, he did not gaze back, -but proceeded alertly along the street. A man and a woman spoke to -him; he bowed. Another passer-by bowed to him with the deference -shown a gentleman of importance and position. And Ruth slowed her -pursuit and followed a little distance behind him. He turned to the -Boulevard St. Michel, where others bowed to him, crossed the -boulevard and went into the Ecole de Médecine.</p> - -<p>Ruth halted a man who had spoken to him and inquired, please, the -name of the gentleman who had just passed. The Frenchman informed -politely, “Monsieur de Trevenac.”</p> - -<p>“The entire name, please?” Ruth pressed.</p> - -<p>“Monsieur Louis de Trevenac,” the name was repeated as of one well -known. Ruth proceeded to the door of the Ecole de Médecine, where -inquiry confirmed the name; M. de Trevenac had just entered.</p> - -<p>Ruth abandoned the pursuit. She was shaking with excitement under -her trim, khaki uniform and cape; but coolness had come to -her—coolness and that calm, competent thought which always succeeded -the irresponsible impulse with her. The German agent, M. Louis de -Trevenac, was not trying to escape from Paris; his business, -undoubtedly, was to remain here, and not in hiding, but prominent -and well known. If she accused him to a gendarme the alarm would go -at once to his confederates; it would be the stupidest and clumsiest -action she could take. Now that she knew him, she could move most -effectively by indirection; she need not betray herself at all, -either to the French or to the Germans.</p> - -<p>She returned across the Seine and went to her work while she thought -it out. She could accomplish her purpose partly, perhaps, through -Hubert Lennon. She might accomplish it more safely through the aid -of other men whom she now knew; or through Mr. Mayhew. But she could -accomplish it best through Gerry Hull.</p> - -<p>Accordingly she telephoned to Hubert that afternoon to meet her at -the <i>pension</i> as soon as possible; and when he came, she asked him -if he knew where Gerry Hull was.</p> - -<p>He was in Paris, Hubert had to confess; he had been in Paris for two -days.</p> - -<p>Ruth could not help coloring. “I need to see him, Hubert. Tell me -where I can find him and I shall go there.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll see that he comes here,” Hubert offered, a little -belligerently.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps that is better,” Ruth accepted. Her orders from the Germans -had been to cultivate her acquaintance with Gerry Hull; yet, if they -were watching her now, it was better to have them see him come to -her. “But you must get him at once,” she said.</p> - -<p>Hubert succeeded within the hour, for it was not yet five in the -afternoon when Gerry Hull appeared on the Rue des Saints Pères, -found the little <i>pension</i> and rang. Ruth had him ushered into a -small private parlor, where she and Milicent entertained; she saw -him there alone.</p> - -<p>He did not pretend that he had been about to call upon her when she -summoned him; nor did he apologize for not having called before. He -was glad to see her, particularly when it became plain that she had -sent for him for help in an emergency.</p> - -<p>“I have received information, which I am quite sure is reliable,” -she said to him after she had closed the door and they sat down, -“but which I wish to have used anonymously, if it is at all -possible.”</p> - -<p>“Information against someone?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Against a man who goes by the name of Louis de Trevenac,” she said -in a low voice. The placards all about Paris warning, <i>Be on guard! -Enemy ears listen!</i> influenced her even behind the closed doors.</p> - -<p>Gerry Hull started. Not greatly, for he had been in France long -enough to hear accusations—false or true—against almost anyone.</p> - -<p>“You know him?” Ruth asked.</p> - -<p>“He is well known,” Gerry said. “I’ve heard of him.”</p> - -<p>“I am absolutely certain that he is a German spy.”</p> - -<p>“How do you know?”</p> - -<p>“If I wanted to tell how I know, I would not have sent for you. It -was not easy,” Ruth said with a gentle sweetness which caught him -with a flush. “I thought it was possible that you would know a -method of starting inquiry regarding one without having to give -details of the cause of your suspicion.”</p> - -<p>Gerry nodded. “That’s possible.”</p> - -<p>“Then please do that in regard to M. Louis de Trevenac. At once!”</p> - -<p>He regarded her, conscious of having to make an effort to consider -what she asked without feeling for her. The attraction to her which -instantly had given him curiosity about her that first time they -met—attraction not merely to her warm, glowing vitality, but to the -purpose which imbued her and to the challenge of her eager, honest -mind—was swaying him. He got for a moment, and quite without his -will, the feeling of her lithe, round little form warm against him, -though she was drenched by the sea, that time he carried her. He -banished that deliberately by recalling the offense she had given -him of the criticism, as he had taken it and as he still took it, of -his comrades, and of himself, and of the great beliefs for which and -in which he lived.</p> - -<p>He could not possibly question the whole loyalty of this girl; he -was not even considering that as he gazed at her. He really was -watching the pretty, alluring, all unconscious pulsations of color -in the clear, soft skin of her cheek and temple; he was watching the -blue of her eyes under her brown brows; watching the tiny tremblings -of her slender, well-shaped hands; and—as Sam Hilton used to do—he -was watching the hues of light glint in her hair as she moved her -head.</p> - -<p>“I can try that, Miss Gail,” he said at last. “If there’s nothing -found out, there will be no particular concern for the source of -suspicion; but if what you say’s true, I may have to ask you a good -deal more.”</p> - -<p>He left it thus when he went away a little later; for, though he -would have liked to stay, she did not wish him to, insisting that he -must proceed against Louis de Trevenac at once.</p> - -<p>He did so; with results which brought him back to her at the end of -the second day.</p> - -<p>“What else do you know in connection with De Trevenac?” he demanded -of her as soon as they were alone.</p> - -<p>“You’re satisfied that he’s a spy?”</p> - -<p>“The French found,” Gerry said, “a most astonishing lot of things. -They’ve mopped up about twenty more besides De Trevenac—twenty -they’d never even looked into. How did you know about him?”</p> - -<p>The discoveries had brought Gerry to her almost in awe; and there -surged through her an impulse to tell him how she knew and all about -herself—to end to him and with him the long, every-waking-minute, -every-sleeping-minute strain of being an impostor, of facing -exposure, of playing a part. She had not let herself feel how that -strain pulled upon her, how lonely and frightened she was at times, -how ill it made her—sick physically as well as sick at heart—to -write her cheerful, newsy letters to Cynthia Gail’s parents, and to -read the letters written by mother and father to Cynthia, and to -which she must again reply; to write to the little boy in Decatur as -his sister would write; to write also—and in ways this was the -hardest—to the man who had loved Cynthia Gail and who, believing -that Cynthia was alive and she was Cynthia, was pouring out his love -to her in letters to which also she must reply and either make him -think that the girl whom he loved, and who had loved him, still -lived, and would not forgive him a single hasty word, or else that -she lived, and still loved him, and would be his in his arms again.</p> - -<p>For a moment the impulse almost overmastered Ruth; but then she had -the better of it. If she told even this man who might trust -her—might, but how could she be sure?—she put the direction of her -fate in other hands. If she had told him about herself at Mrs. -Corliss’ or upon the boat, he would have prevented her from -proceeding alone as she had; he would have believed her unable to -best accomplish things by herself, or he would have thought the risk -too great; or some obstacle would have arisen to prevent her doing -that not inconsiderable thing she already had done.</p> - -<p>If she was willing to give up now—to relieve herself of further risk -and become merely what she seemed, an ordinary girl worker, in -France—why she could tell him. But if she was to go ahead into the -greater hazards of which she dreamed, she must go of herself.</p> - -<p>“I could tell you,” Ruth said, gazing up at Gerry, “that when I was -on the street I happened to overhear a conversation which made me -sure that he was a spy.”</p> - -<p>“But it would not be the truth.”</p> - -<p>“No; not quite.”</p> - -<p>“I knew so.”</p> - -<p>She looked down and he saw her suddenly shiver. He put a hand -quickly upon her and then the other hand; he held her by her slender -shoulders, her round arms quivering under his fingers. His pulses -leaped with warm, thrusting waves which seemed to start in his hands -holding her and to shake his whole body.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” he asked.</p> - -<p>She raised a hand and gently with her fingers, released one hand of -his from her shoulder; he removed the other.</p> - -<p>“What have we done with De Trevenac and the rest?”</p> - -<p>“They’re in a safe place for further investigation; nothing else, -yet.”</p> - -<p>“But we’re going to?”</p> - -<p>“Give ’em a trial, of course; and then shoot some of ’em anyway.”</p> - -<p>“Monsieur de Trevenac?”</p> - -<p>“Him pretty surely.”</p> - -<p>A shudder jerked her shoulders together in a spasm; he wanted to -still her under his hands; but he did not. He knew why she asked -particularly about De Trevenac; she had seen him, heard his voice, -perhaps; she could picture him standing blindfolded to be shot—upon -her information. He would be her first slain.</p> - -<p>Gerry had been a bit more brutal in his way of telling her than he -had intended; indeed, now he did not understand himself. He had -acted upon instinct to torment, rather than spare her, to see how -she took it.</p> - -<p>She raised her head proudly. She’s beautiful, he thought. The poise -of that well-shaped head always was pretty; her shoulders, even -under the khaki, were pretty; they were well-formed, firm shoulders. -His gaze had dropped to them from her eyes; but now went back to her -blue eyes again.</p> - -<p>“Did you ever see—before—a man you had to kill?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“A few times,” he said.</p> - -<p>“The first man you killed?”</p> - -<p>“The first man I ever was certain that I killed was when I was in -the foreign legion,” he said. “We were advancing, using bayonets. -The Huns weren’t expecting an offensive there; it was the first year -after they’d failed in France and were using their best troops in -Russia. We found a Landsturm regiment against us—middle-aged men, -married mostly, I suppose; fathers. I saw the face of one a second -or so before I put my bayonet through him. A couple of times since, -maneuvering for position in the air, I’ve got a good glimpse at -chaps I was lucky enough to shoot down afterwards. I’d rather have -not, you know,” he confessed.</p> - -<p>“I know,” Ruth said. “But we’re going to kill them—kill men, men, -and more men! We have to. I’ll not be too soft, don’t fear! I’ve -been all this month among women—girls and children, too—from the -departments they’ve overrun! Not that they’ve told me much which I -didn’t believe before; but—well, getting it direct is different.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>He was thinking, she knew, of their initial encounter; was she so -pleased and proud of the tardiness of America now?</p> - -<p>“I found out a remarkable thing from some Belgians,” she said, half -in answer to this unspoken challenge. “They told me that after the -Germans took complete possession of their country and forbade them -to wear Belgian colors or even rosette symbols, they took to wearing -American colors. We were neutral then; and the Germans didn’t dare -stop it; so they all wore, as their symbol of defiance, our flag!”</p> - -<p>“That was when everyone thought always that we must come in,” he -rejoined. He was not thinking about what she was saying, but of her. -“You’ve had more in your mind all along than just coming here to do -relief work,” he announced his thought aloud to her.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I had.”</p> - -<p>“Can I ask what it is?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t tell you.”</p> - -<p>“But you’ve been doing some of it?”</p> - -<p>“Some.”</p> - -<p>“You’re going to keep at it?”</p> - -<p>“If you’ll let me.”</p> - -<p>“You mean by not making you tell how you found out about De Trevenac -and by keeping you out of that?”</p> - -<p>She nodded.</p> - -<p>“But you must tell me anything else of that sort you know.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know anything more of that sort except this: he had orders -to see that someone be sent to the vicinity of Roisel to observe -particularly dispositions of the British Fifth Army—their reserve -strength and whether there were signs that they will extend their -front.”</p> - -<p>“That’s absolutely all?”</p> - -<p>“Absolutely all—except that I think that was a particularly -imperative order.”</p> - -<p>“They’d be sending people all along that front,” Gerry said. “We -know they’re to try an offensive where the armies join; the only -doubt is when. I say, I’ll report for you that you just overheard -something on the street; and I’ll try to get past with it. If I -can’t, you’ll see me here soon again; and soon anyway, if you don’t -mind, please.”</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t mind,” Ruth said simply, “but I’ll not be here. I’m -leaving Paris in the morning.”</p> - -<p>“Ho! Where to?”</p> - -<p>“I applied day before yesterday for field work and got it; so I’m -going to Picardy.”</p> - -<p>“That’s no address. What part?”</p> - -<p>“Roisel.”</p> - -<p>“Hmm!”</p> - -<p>Was he evolving—she wondered—the fact that De Trevenac’s order to -someone to go to Roisel had been delivered to her?</p> - -<p>Gerry had not got that far. He was thinking that this strange girl, -so unlike any other one whom he had known well, was evidently -determined to watch for herself the outcome about Roisel. He was -thinking, too, that Roisel was decidedly an inconvenient place for -him to visit. To be sure, it was in that direction that Agnes Ertyle -would be at work, for the hospital units, to which she was attached, -were caring for casualties from the Fifth Army; but till she would -be about that part of Picardy, he would have no errands likely to -take him there. And he wished that he had; or that this girl would -soon again be where he could see her.</p> - -<p>The days when he could be free from duty were few and brief now; and -with the swift onset of spring they were certain to be fewer. For -tremendous movements—the most stupendous in all human history—were -clearly imminent; men, and women too, were certain to be called upon -to die in number beyond all past calculation.</p> - -<p>Gerry Hull did not think of himself as one of those certain to die; -neither did he think of himself as one likely to live. Long ago he -had attained that new imbuement of being, independent of all -estimates of continuance of self, which was content with disposing -of the present hours as best might be. So he had been spending his -hours, whenever possible, with Agnes Ertyle; his next distant day -was to be with her. And heretofore there had been no other desire to -disturb him.</p> - -<p>Now he was conscious—not of any inclination to spend an hour away -from Agnes when he might possibly be with her—but only of concern -for this blue-eyed, light-haired, warm, ardent girl from among his -own people.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what else you’re doing, Cynthia Gail,” he said both -names as he had that time he had carried her, “but I suppose it’s -dangerous. That’s all right,” he added hastily, “if the danger’s -necessary; if it’s not—well, it’s foolishness, you know. I wouldn’t -ask you to stop doing anything which could catch us another haul -like De Trevenac; but that may be more than a deadly game.” He held -out his hand to her and, when she placed hers in his, he held her -fingers firmly. “Don’t be foolish, please!”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you!” she pleaded to him in return; and the sudden broaching -of the passion which had been below astounded her as much as it -dumfounded him. “You take no regard for yourself—none, none at all!”</p> - -<p>“That’s—newspaper nonsense,” he managed. He released her hand, but -her grasp held him now and he could not break it except violently.</p> - -<p>“It’s not! I’ve talked to men who know you, who’ve flown with you! -They all say the same thing; and they all love you for it; you’ve no -regard for yourself, numbers against you or anything when you’ve -something you’ve determined to do! You do it! Oh, I wouldn’t have -you not—I wouldn’t want you different. But the same need now doesn’t -exist!”</p> - -<p>Her fingers had slipped from him and they stood back a bit, both -breathing hard and very flushed as they faced each other.</p> - -<p>“We’re outnumbered in France this spring as never before,” he -informed her soberly. “It’s not generally—discussed; but, since -Russia’s absolutely out, that’s the fact.”</p> - -<p>“I know,” she said. “But what I meant was that you, and just a few -others, aren’t the only Americans here now. Oh, I’ve been able to -understand why you’ve flown and fought as you have, why your friends -are almost all fallen now and you, only by the grace of our God, are -left! I think I understood some of your feeling even before I knew -you and heard you speak. You and your friends whom you thought I -insulted—you, for a while, had to do the fighting for all America; a -score or so of you had to do, you felt, for a hundred million of us -who wouldn’t come in! But we’re coming now; a good many of us are -here!”</p> - -<p>“Many?” he repeated. “A couple of hundred thousand among millions. -And the German millions are almost ready to strike! Forgive me, I -didn’t mean to scold you ever again for America; but—oh, you’ll see! -The husbands, and fathers, and the boys of France, the husbands, and -fathers, and the boys of England taking the blow again, giving -themselves to the guns to save us all while our young men watch!”</p> - -<p>She gazed up at him, but stayed silent now. Terror seized her that -she had done only harm, that she had stirred him to greater -regardlessness. His anger against her people, whom she defended, -had—as at that first time—banished his feeling for her. When he gave -her his hand again, he barely touched her fingers; and he was gone.</p> - -<p>Returning that night to his squadron at the front, he wrote her an -apology; but, after reading it over, tore it up. His squadron was -stationed far to the east and south of Roisel; and there was at that -time nothing in the military situation to give him greater concern -for that particular sector. Yet when news arrived he scanned it -quickly for report of operations about Roisel. However, though he -twice got leave of a day, he did not on either occasion penetrate -farther into Picardy than the little city where Lady Agnes now -lived.</p> - -<p>All along the front, from Switzerland to the sea, the calm -continued; but few on either side of that line held illusions as to -the nature of that calm. Then, as all the world knows, suddenly upon -a morning the storm broke.</p> - -<p>Gerry Hull received the bulletins which came over the military wire -which brought him also his orders. These orders were for his -squadron at once to move and report for service at the earliest -possible moment at a certain point in Picardy—which orders, as -orders usually go, were unexplained except as the news bulletins -gave them meaning.</p> - -<p>The news, however, left no loopholes for doubt. The great German -assault, which had begun the morning before, already had developed a -complete break-through of the British front. The Germans, in one -tremendous dash, had overrun the first lines of defense, the second, -and the third; they were advancing now in open country with only -remnants of an army before them; and the center of this huge wave of -the enemy advance was what had been the French village of Roisel.</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chX' title='The Great Attack'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER X</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>THE GREAT ATTACK</span> -</h2> - -<p>The English guns began it.</p> - -<p>To the world the great battle started with the German onslaught of -the morning of that Thursday, the twenty-first of March; but to -Ruth, the beginning was with the English guns—the guns of the -evening before, rolling and resounding over the Picardy plain.</p> - -<p>The night seemed to have embarked upon stillness in its earlier -hours. The “line”—that dim, neighboring bulwark descending from the -far indefiniteness of the North Sea to approach close to the little -hamlet of Mirevaux, to seem indeed to point into Mirevaux but for a -twist which turned it away and deflected it, sweeping southward, and -east, and south again toward the farther fastness of the Alps—the -line had been absolutely quiet. A great many airplanes had been up -during the afternoon, Ruth had observed as she gazed toward the line -from Mirevaux; their wings had specked the sky of the twilight. When -the afterglow was gone and the moon held the heavens, little colored -lights flashed frequently before the stars of the east, marking -where many night-flying pilots plied on their errands; but these -signals seemed at first not to be for the guns. The moon illumined a -drowsy Mirevaux, war-ravaged, but rewon, and dreaming itself secure -again behind that barrier of earth, and men, and guns, and gas, and -airplanes over the slopes of the east which the English held.</p> - -<p>And not alone Mirevaux so dreamed. Many persons of far wider -information than the French peasants and without the French folks’ -love of their own home farms to influence them, also imagined -Mirevaux quite safe—the hard-headed and quite practical, though -impulsive persons who made up a certain American committee for the -restoration of war-ravaged lands, had moved, and seconded, and -decreed in committee meeting that Mirevaux was definitely and -finally removed from the zone of invasion and, therefore, that the -committee’s representative in Mirevaux should be authorized to -expend for temporary and permanent restoration so many thousands of -francs a month.</p> - -<p>It was the useful expenditure of these sums which had brought Ruth -Alden, as assistant and associate to Mrs. Gregory Mayhew, to -Mirevaux from Roisel in the first week of March and which, upon the -quiet moonlit evening of that Wednesday, the twentieth, detained -Ruth at the cottage of old Grand’mère Bergues, who with her -grandchildren—Victor and <i>petite</i> Marie—had outstayed the German -occupation of Mirevaux from August of the first year of the war to -the great retreat of February, 1917, when the enemy went back to the -Hindenburg line, destroying unremovable property and devastating -orchard and farm.</p> - -<p>Grand’mère Bergues stood at the door of the little cottage which, -last autumn, had been restored as well as obtainable materials -permitted. The moon shone down upon what had been an orchard; but -the Germans, before their retreat, had systematically sawed through -the trunk of each tree till the tree fell. The French, as quickly as -possible, had regrafted the top upon the stump and thus had saved a -great many trees; and the new buds upon them, showing that these had -survived the winter and would bloom and fruit again, brought to -Grand’mère Bergues a sense of triumph over the Boche.</p> - -<p>Grand’mère Bergues needed all the triumph she could feel. Her son, -Laurent, lay in one of those white-crossed graves of the defenders -of Douaumont at Verdun; her own daughter Mathilde, who had married a -merchant of Carnières, which was beyond Cambrai, had not been heard -of since the first year of the war. Laurent’s wife—well, she had -been a young and beautiful woman and Grand’mère Bergues either told -nothing of what had been her fate when the Germans came or else she -told it again and again in abandon.</p> - -<p>“They bound me to the bedpost; and one said—he was a pink-faced pig, -with the pink—ugh!—all about his head through his closecropped -hair—he said, ‘Remove her.’</p> - -<p>“‘No; it is better to let her see. But keep her quiet!’</p> - -<p>“So they stuffed in my mouth....”</p> - -<p>Ruth well knew the frightful facts; she knew that, three years ago, -there had been little Laurent—a baby—too.</p> - -<p>“These things,” said Grand’mère Bergues, “you did not believe at -first.”</p> - -<p>“No,” Ruth said, “we did not.”</p> - -<p>“It is not to be wondered at,” the old woman said simply. “The -wonderful fact is that now you arrive!”</p> - -<p>She trudged along beside Ruth through the ruin of the orchard and -halted with her hand upon the bough of an apple tree which was one -of those that the French had grafted and saved.</p> - -<p>“I saw them cut this down; they measure so many centimeters from the -ground; they start to saw; they cut so far through; they stop; it is -destroyed! Ah, but I shall pluck apples this August, oh, beast pigs, -brutes below all others!” she apostrophized quite calmly. “How may -those who have the form of men be such fools, too?” she asked Ruth. -“When they are here—those who bound me to the bed and their -comrades—they say that they would be the friends of France. The -English, they say, are our enemies; we shall see! Well, the English -are about us now as they have been; and look, I have come of my own -will away from Victor and Marie, leaving them alone, sleeping. Such -danger now! And you, Mademoiselle, you are younger and as beautiful -even as my Laurent’s wife—you go on, quite safe, unaccompanied.”</p> - -<p>Ruth proceeded quite safely, indeed; but not unaccompanied for long. -The English, as Grand’mère Bergues said, were all about—a regiment -was lying in reserve just then beyond Mirevaux; and a certain young -lieutenant, who had been one of the guests at a tea at Mrs. Mayhew’s -cottage a week ago, was awaiting Ruth upon the road. His name was -Haddon-Staples; but he was so like “1582” of the <i>Ribot</i> that Ruth -had dubbed him to herself “1583” and she appreciated him hugely.</p> - -<p>Hardly had he caught step with her when the guns began—the English -guns.</p> - -<p>The firing was heavy—no heavier, perhaps, than Ruth often had heard -at night during the days near Mirevaux, but tonight it seemed to -Ruth to have a more intense, more nervous quality.</p> - -<p>“Box barrage, sounds like,” Haddon-Staples volunteered when Ruth -stopped to study the direction of the action. “Not much on, I should -say. Trench raid for information, probably.”</p> - -<p>“When do you suppose they’ll attack?”</p> - -<p>They, of course, were the Germans. “Oh, any time. That’s what we’re -out for a bit of a line on tonight—naturally. Sooner they try it, -the better, don’t you think?”</p> - -<p>“You’re—we’re all ready for them?” Ruth asked.</p> - -<p>“Ready as may be,” the Englishman returned politely. “They’ve rather -the advantage of us, you know—numerically. A good bit of a farm here -again, isn’t there?” he shifted the subject, gazing over the level, -planted fields.</p> - -<p>Ruth talked with him about other things; but her thought remained -with those English guns firing and firing, with the English gunners -serving them, with the English infantry raiding “for information” or -lying in wait for the certain-coming attack of an enemy having a -recognized advantage—numerically. The reason that the enemy -possessed that advantage was, she knew, that America was not yet in -force on the battle line. But for that tardiness, she had not yet -heard one word of censure from Englishmen or from the French.</p> - -<p>The guns were still going when she went to bed at half-past ten—the -English guns with the German guns attempting only ordinary reply. So -Ruth slept until a quaking of the ground and a sudden, tremendous -new impact of sound sat her up in the darkness, awake. She gazed at -her watch; it was half-past four. German guns now were sending the -monstrous missiles whose detonation shook the land; it was the -English guns which attempted the reply. Ruth went to her window and -gazed out in the dark toward the lines until the gray of dawn -discovered a thin gray mist over the ground—a mist of the sort -making for surprises of attacking forces upon the forces defending; -and that frightful fire of the German guns meant that, this morning -at last, the Germans were attacking.</p> - -<p>Ruth dressed as Mrs. Mayhew and everyone else in the house was -dressing. The thunder of the guns, the never-ceasing concussion of -the bursting shells rolled louder and nearer.</p> - -<p>“That must be the start of their offensive,” Mrs. Mayhew said. “Let -them try; they’ll never get through!”</p> - -<p>“No,” Ruth said; and she believed it. She thought of the German -attacks upon Ypres in the early years of the war; of their failure -at Verdun last year and the slow progress of the allies when they -had been on the offensive—the French in Champagne and the English on -the Somme. The others also believed it.</p> - -<p>“What will you be about today, dear?” Mrs. Mayhew asked Ruth.</p> - -<p>“Oh!”—Ruth needed the moment of the exclamation to recollect. “I’m -going to Aubigny to see that our last lot of portable houses got -there all right and that the people know how to put them up.”</p> - -<p>“Then come with me; I’m going to Ham,” Mrs. Mayhew offered, and -during the morning, quite as usual, they drove off together in Mrs. -Mayhew’s car about their business of helping rehouse and shelter and -refurnish the peasants of Picardy.</p> - -<p>While they rode in the bright morning sunshine—for the mist was -cleared now—guns, English guns emplaced far behind the lines and -whose presence they had never suspected before, thundered out; their -concussion added to the trembling of the ground; and through the air -swept sounds—swift, shrill, and ominous—not heard on the days -before.</p> - -<p>“Shells?” Mrs. Mayhew asked.</p> - -<p>Ruth nodded. She had heard the shriek of the shells which had missed -the <i>Ribot</i> and passed over. “Shells, I think,” she said. They were -passing peasants on the road now—families of peasants or such relics -of families as the war had left; some, who had a horse, drove a -wagon heaped high with the new household goods which they had gained -since the invasion; some pushed barrows; others bore bundles only.</p> - -<p>Ruth, who was driving, halted the car again and again.</p> - -<p>“Where are you going?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“We do not know,” the peasants answered.</p> - -<p>Ruth drove on into the little city of Ham, where ambulances bearing -the English wounded were arriving in an endless line from the front. -Mrs. Mayhew had seen wounded men—many, many of them—in the Paris -hospitals; Ruth too had seen wounded—almost two score of people -variously hurt aboard the <i>Ribot</i>. But here they came, not as -<i>blessés</i> arrived in Paris, but from the battle field and, not by -scores, but by hundreds, by thousands!</p> - -<p>Ruth went sick when she saw them. She thought of Hubert, her -gentle-minded, sensitive Hubert, now helping to handle men so hurt. -She thought of Agnes Ertyle when she saw English women, as well as -English men, receiving the forms from the ambulances at the great -casualty clearing stations where new rows of tents hastily were -going up. She thought, of course, of Gerry Hull. She believed that -he was far removed from this zone of battle; but she did not yet -know—no one yet knew—how far the fighting front was extending. He -might be flying at this moment over a front most heavily involved; -she knew that he would wish to be; and how he would fight—fight as -never before and without regard of himself to check disaster due, as -he would believe, to the tardiness of his country.</p> - -<p>She saw a boy in the uniform of the Royal Flying Corps lying upon a -stretcher in the sunshine; he was smoking, but he took his cigarette -from his lips to smile at her as she gazed down at him.</p> - -<p>British troops—strong, young, uninjured men—marching in battalions; -English guns and ammunition lorries; more English infantry and guns -poured into the streets of the city, passed through them and on to -the front and more came. The wounded from the front and the French -folk from the farms and villages passed on their way to the rear; -but no one else came back.</p> - -<p>“The line is steadying itself; it’s holding,” the rumor ran in Ham -during the afternoon. “The Boche gained at first—everyone on the -offensive gains at first—but now we’re holding them; we’re -slaughtering them as they come on.” Then more alarming reports -spread. “They’ve overrun the first lines at points; but the others -are holding or are sure to—the Boche are doing better than at -Verdun.” Then that was denied. “They’re not doing so well. We’re -holding them now. They’re coming on. They’re driving us back.”</p> - -<p>Not even the wounded and the refugees, still streaming from the -front, brought reliable report; the battle was too immense for that. -And into the battle, English reinforcements steadily went forward. -So Ruth was sure only that the great battle, which the world had -been awaiting, was begun; she could know nothing of the true fortune -of that first tremendous day. She was finding, however, that Mrs. -Mayhew and she could not go about their work of restoration. They -turned their car upon the road and, inviting refugees, they carried -the peasants swift miles along the roads which they had been -trudging; let them off ten miles or so to the rear and returned for -more.</p> - -<p>But they urged no one to flee; they simply assisted those already in -flight and who would not be turned back. And that evening, which was -more quiet than the evening before—or at least it seemed so in -comparison to the day—they returned to Mirevaux. The worst was past, -they believed; the line, the English and the French line which for -more than three years had stood and held against the Germans, had -reformed and reestablished itself after the first shake of the -tremendous onslaught.</p> - -<p>And so it still seemed to those in Mirevaux that next morning of -Friday when, after breakfast, Ruth discussed again with Mrs. Mayhew -what she would do that day. They were agreeing that they should be -calm and show confidence and go about their work as usual, when they -heard the hoofs of a galloping horse upon the road. The rider pulled -up short before their cottage and Ruth, running to the door, saw -“1583”—the English officer who had waited for her upon the road from -Grand’mère Bergues’ the night before last.</p> - -<p>“They’ve broken through!” he called to Ruth.</p> - -<p>“Through!” Ruth cried. “The Germans!”</p> - -<p>“We can’t hold them! They’re coming on! Fifty thousand of them! -They’ve broken through—through! We couldn’t hold them!”</p> - -<p>Ruth recoiled upon the door. Mrs. Mayhew was beside her, calling out -to the officer; but he, having given the alarm to that house, was -going on. Ruth gazed vacantly over the smooth, replowed, replanted -French fields and the rows of grafted orchard trees toward -Grand’mère Bergues’; and her mind gave her, in a flash, vision of -the broken dam of the English line with the German flood bursting -through; and before that flood she saw again the refugees of -yesterday in flight; she saw Grand’mère Bergues with <i>petite</i> Marie -and Victor caught again, perhaps; she saw the wounded on the roads -and in the tents of the clearing stations, cut off by the Germans -and taken; she saw the English troops—the strong, young men whom she -had witnessed marching to the front yesterday—battling bravely, -desperately, but shot down, bayoneted and overrun.</p> - -<p>“They’ve broken through. We couldn’t hold them! They’re coming on!”</p> - -<p>Ruth gazed from the ground to the sky and she saw—not in her fancy -but visually above her now—airplanes, allied airplanes flying in -squadrons from the rear toward that front which she could not see -but where, she knew, the line on the ground was broken and gone and -where the Germans, who were “coming on,” must be pouring through. -And her mind showed her in the pilot’s seat of one of those -airplanes—or in one just like them somewhere on that broken -front—Gerry Hull. Vividly she fancied his face as he flew to fight -and to make up, as well as one man might, for the millions of his -people who should have been yesterday and today upon that broken -battle line where the enemy, at last, had broken through!</p> - -<p>Ruth could not know then all that a break “through” meant; no one -could know; for in all the fighting in France, no army had broken -“through” before. She could know only that upon her, as an American -quite as much as Gerry Hull, was the charge to do her uttermost.</p> - -<p>But what was she to do?</p> - -<p>Gerry, arriving that morning at the airdrome to which he had been -ordered, possessed the advantage over her of no uncertainty but of -definite assignment to duty.</p> - -<p>During his training and his service with the French, he had piloted -many sorts of machines. He had flown the reconnaissance and -photographic biplanes with duty merely to bring back information of -the enemy’s movements; he had flown the bombing machines entrusted -with destruction, by aerial torpedo, of batteries, and ammunition -dumps behind the enemy’s front; he had flown the “artillery -machines”—the biplanes with wireless by which he, or his observer, -signaled to the French batteries the fall of their shots and guided -the guns to the true targets; he had flown, as all the world knew, -the swift-darting <i>avions de chasse</i>—the airplanes of pursuit—the -Nieuports and the Spads in which, as combat pilot, he had dueled ten -thousand feet up in the sky with the German combat pilots and shot -some twenty of them down. And it was while he was still in the -French service that the flying men began to form new squadrons for -strange service distinct from mere bomb-dropping, from guiding guns -or sending back information or from fighting other airplanes. Pilots -of these squadrons started to attack, by bomb and machine guns, the -enemy infantry and artillery and horse. They had special, new -“ships” made for them—one-seater or two-seater biplanes mounting two -or three machine guns and built to stand the strain of diving down -from a height and “flattening out” suddenly only a few yards from -the ground while the pilot with his machine guns raked the ranks of -troops over which he flew.</p> - -<p>It was in one of these new raiding airplanes, accordingly, and as -leader of a flight that Gerry Hull was going to battle this day. The -field, from which he had arisen, had been far back of the English -lines—so far back, indeed, that it still was secure as Gerry guided -his flight of six machines up into the clear spring sunshine. His -was one of the single-seaters; he was alone, therefore, as he led on -to the north and east; and he was glad this morning to be alone. The -exaltation which almost always pervaded him as he rose into the sky -with his motor running powerfully and true, possessed him at its -most this morning; it brought to him, together with the -never-dulling wonder of his endowment of wings and his multiplied -strength therefrom, a despite of fate which made him reckless yet -calm.</p> - -<p>His altimeter told that he had climbed to some four thousand feet -and content with that height and flying level, he glanced about and -saw that the machines which followed him were flattening out too and -in position. He gazed at his mapboard where was displayed chart of -the land below with notation of the battle line—such battle line as -still existed—corrected up to the last hour by photographs and -visual observations made by other pilots that morning. It was the -strip of ravaged and restored land over which he was flying; clearly -he could see the cross-streaked spots of the cities; on his right, -Ham; on his left, Péronne and Roisel. Roads spider-webbed about -them; tiny villages clustered. Immediately below he could see even, -decent patches of planted fields, gardens, meadows; he could make -out, too, more minute objects—the peasants’ cottages and their -trees, the tiny roofs of the new portable houses supplied by the -Americans.</p> - -<p>He could see the specks which were people upon the roads, gathered -in groups moving together; where the specks formed into a long, -ordered line, he knew that they were troops and moving toward the -battle, probably. He himself was flying so fast that the direction -of the slow movement upon the roads could not appear; but he could -guess that the irregular series of specks were refugees in flight. -Shells were smashing beside them—shrapnel, high explosive, and gas. -He could recognize easily the puff of the shrapnel distinct from the -burst of the high explosive shells. He could not distinguish the gas -shells; but he knew that the Germans were using them, deluging with -gas the zone behind the battle to a depth unknown before.</p> - -<p>He gazed forward to the ground where the German infantry now was -advancing—ground sloping so slightly hereabouts that, but for the -shadows, it would have seemed flat. But the morning sun of March was -still circling low, making all bright a strip where shells, in -enormous number, erupted; just short of this strip, the sunlight -ceased sharply in a shadow which did not move; the bright strip -therefore was the eastern slope of a hill and the shadow was its -western descent—a slope where, at this moment, the English must be -attempting a stand.</p> - -<p>Gerry gazed to the right to try to find and, with his eyes, follow -the line which ran from this hill; but he could discover none; he -glanced to the left and failed there also to discern support for the -English soldiers on the hill. Surely there must have been support of -some sort thereabouts; but the Germans had overwhelmed or swept it -back. Germans—German infantry in mass, Germans deployed, German guns -engaged and German guns moving forward followed by their -trains—Germans possessed the ground before that sunlit slope and on -its right and left.</p> - -<p>He looked farther away to the south and to the north; and he could -witness the truth which already he had been told. The “line,” in the -sense in which one had known the line for three years, was swept -away—first, second, third, and all supporting systems of defense; -attempts to form new lines behind the old had failed. Open field -battle, swift and Napoleonic, was established; for this battle the -Germans had gathered men by the hundred thousands, guns by the -thousand while the English here had—well, the remnants of brigades -and divisions which here and there held to the slope of a hill.</p> - -<p>Gerry wondered, as he gazed down, whether these men on the nearest -slope knew that—already half surrounded—there was no support behind -them. He was steering lower as he neared them, drawing to himself a -shell or two from some German anti-aircraft gun which he did not -trouble to try to place. Airplanes appeared all about him now, -above, before, behind, and on both sides; but they were, most of -them, English or French; here and there he glimpsed a German -machine; but none of these approached him to attack. For if the -ground that morning was the Germans’, the air was the allies’; it -was only from the air, from him and his flight of five machines -trailing behind him and from other similar flights of fighting -airplanes likewise arriving, that any help could reach those English -about to be attacked.</p> - -<p>For the storm of German shells, which a few seconds before had been -sweeping the slope, lifted suddenly; before the hill and from the -flank, specks which were German storm troops moved forward; and -Gerry, turning his head, saw that the other machines followed him in -position. In signal to them, he rocked his ship a little. Steadying -again, he leaned forward and saw that his machine guns were ready; -softly he touched the release levers of his bombs. His hands went -back to his controls and, gazing below at the German ranks again, he -put the nose of his machine down and dived.</p> - -<p>Ordinarily, during the tremendous seconds of the drop, he could see -nothing but the spot of earth at which his eyes were focused, -leaping up and up at him; ordinarily, sensation stopped with the -feeling of fall and the rush of that seeming suck of destruction. -But now his senses took in many things. His eyes never lost the -swelling specks of gray which were becoming German storm troops -leaping to the attack; but his eyes took in, too, the file of forms -in English brown lying waiting over the crest of the hill.</p> - -<p>They were scattered and few—very, very few, he saw; fewer even than -he had feared when he gazed down upon them from two thousand feet -higher. He had counted the forms of the dead among the holders of -the hill; he could not, in that flash of vision, see that the many, -many were dead; he could see only that, as he dropped down above -them, few of the forms were moving. They were drawing together in -little groups with bayonets flashing in the sunshine, drawing -together in tens and scores and half hundreds for last desperate -defense of the hill against the thousands coming to take it.</p> - -<p>The puffing jets of German machine-gun fire, enfilading the hill -from the right and from the left, shone over the ground in the -morning sunshine where German machine gunners had worked their way -about to fire in front of their charging troops; Gerry saw no such -jets from the hill, though the charging men in gray must be in plain -sight and within point-blank range at that instant from the English -on the hill. The English were short of ammunition, that meant.</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chXI' title='The Resistance'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER XI</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>THE RESISTANCE</span> -</h2> - -<p>But the English were going to fight.</p> - -<p>This knowledge came to Gerry through the rush and suck of the final -yards of his three thousand foot fall; mechanically, automatically -his hands were tugging at his controls, his feet braced firm on his -rudder bar as he began to bring his machine out of the fall. He had -come down at terrific speed with his motor only partly shut off; he -had no time, and no need, to watch his speed indicator; he knew well -enough when he was on edge of the breaking strain which his wings -and wires could stand. He slanted more directly toward the Germans -and he was very low above the ground; still half falling, half -flying—and at greater speed than ever he could have flown—he hurled -himself at them, flattening out at perhaps fifty feet from the -earth.</p> - -<p>He knew—not from anything which he consciously saw nor from any -conscious reckoning but by the automatism of realization and the -reflex from it which guided and coordinated his mind, nerve, and -muscle in these terrific instants of attack—he knew that German -machine gunners were firing at him; he knew that German riflemen in -the ranks which he was charging were giving him bursts of bullets as -fast as they could fire; and his fingers which so tenderly had -touched the release levers of his bombs, pulled them positively now; -with his other hand, which held to the control stick, he had -gathered the lanyard which governed his machine gun; he had adjusted -it so that the slightest tug would get the guns going; he gave that -tug and the reassuring, familiar <i>jet-jet</i> of his guns firing -through his airscrew combined with the burst of his bombs below and -behind.</p> - -<p>His fingers went from his bomb levers to his throttle to open it -wider; the detonations which had followed him ceased; his hand flew -back to his lever and the bursts began again. All the time his hand -on the control stick kept tension on the gun lanyards; ceaselessly -those jets from his machine gun projected through the whorl of his -airscrew.</p> - -<p>He was killing men. He could see them, not as he killed them, but -some infinitesimal of a second before; very possibly, indeed, the -bullets out of those jets of his machine guns already had pierced -the white flashes under the helmets which were faces of Germans -gazing up at him or had riddled through the gray bulks of their -bodies. But blood had not time to spot to the surface; the shock of -the bullets, even when they immediately killed, had not time to -dissolve the tautness of those bodies and relax them and let them -down before Gerry was flown over them and was gone. He had taken -position, when high in the sky a few seconds earlier, so as to sweep -the length of the waves of the Germans charging; and though the -swiftness of this sweep forbade him from seeing the results, he knew -that with his machine guns alone he was taking off many; and though -he could not now look back at all, he knew that his bombs, dropped -from so close, must be killing many, many more.</p> - -<p>The Germans attested to that; they scattered and scurried before -him; he had no row of gray forms for his target now; to save his -cartridges, he had to stop that steady pull on his lanyard; he -pursued groups, firing short bursts of bullets till they broke and -scattered again. He was not fighting alone, of course; the machines -in his flight all had followed him down. He outflew the men on the -ground and, rising while he turned, he got view of the field over -which he had swept; two of his machines which had followed him, were -rising already; the others were still flying low, attacking with -machine guns and bombs; and below them, that line of the German -attack was halted and broken. He could see spaces where his bombs -had exploded or where the machine-gun fire from the airplanes had -been most effective and gray-clad forms strewed the ground; between -these spots, German officers were reforming ranks and getting men -together again. Gerry opened his throttle wide and, circling, -climbed a little more; and then, he dove again and gave it to these -gathering men.</p> - -<p>Gave them machine-gun fire alone, now; for his bombs were gone. He -could see the work of the bombs better, and sight of that work -brought him grim exultation. He was glad that this morning he was no -mere duelist of the sky, darting and feinting and dashing in, -spinning about and diving high in the heavens to shoot down just one -enemy; here he had led an attack which had killed or disabled -hundreds. This was no day to glory in single combat.</p> - -<p>He had overflown again the men on the ground and, climbing once -more, he got view of the crest of the slope. It was gray! Gray-clad -men were swarming all over it; gray—Germans! Brown men battled them; -bayonets glinted in the sun; the brown men dropped; gray men -toppled, too; but there were more of the gray all about. How they -had got up there, Gerry could not tell; they might be some of those -in the waves at which he had fired and who had gone on; they might -be a different battalion which had charged in from the flank. They -were there; they had taken the hill; they were slaying the last of -the English. Gerry saw the swirls of the brown and gray where a few -survivors, surrounded, were fighting hand to hand to the last. He -forced down the nose of his machine and dropped at them; he let go -one burst of bullets into the gray; let go another and now, as he -pulled on his lanyard, the airscrew before him whirled clear; the -jets did not project through it; his machine guns were silent; their -ammunition was spent.</p> - -<p>He had a mad impulse, when he realized this, to swerve lower and -make himself and his machine a mighty projectile to scythe those -German heads with the edges of his wings; he could kill—he was -calculating, in one of those flashes which consume no reckonable -time, the number of gray men he could hope to kill. Ten or a dozen, -at most; and he had just slain—and therefore again that day might -slay—a hundred. But that instinct did not decide him. Among the gray -men, in the only groups upon which he could thus drop, were brown -men, so with his free hand he pulled out his automatic pistol and, -as he flew barely above the helmets of the men in the mêlée, he -emptied the magazine.</p> - -<p>English soldiers glanced up at him; ten feet below him were English -boys, doomed, surrounded but fighting. It struck shame through Gerry -the next moment when he was rising clear and safe that a few seconds -before he could have been almost within hand reach of those English -boys fighting to the end on the ground; that, indeed, he had for a -moment fought with them and then he had deserted them to their death -while he had flown free. He looked back, half banking his machine -about; but already the battle upon that hill crest was over; the -last of the English were killed. Gerry could return only to avenge -them; and the way to avenge was with refilled bomb racks and -machine-gun magazines.</p> - -<p>That dive to the top of the hill had separated him from the other -machines in his flight except one which was following him on his -return to the airdrome for ammunition and bombs. Gerry, gazing down, -found disorganization more visible than when he had flown to the -front. He could see the English troops, whom he had viewed advancing -upon the roads, spreading out and forming a line of resistance; but -he could better realize how few these English were for the needs of -this mighty emergency. They were taking positions, not with any -possible hope of holding them against the German masses but only -with determination to fight to delay the enemy a little as Gerry had -just seen some of them fight.</p> - -<p>He sighted his field and he swooped down upon it, leaping out as -soon as he stopped. He saw that, as he had suspected, rifle or -machine-gun bullets had gone through his wings; but they had not -pierced spars or struts; his wires were tight. While men refilled -his bomb racks and magazines and gave him fuel, he reported what he -had seen and received new orders.</p> - -<p>His superiors recognized that the disaster, instead of lessening, -was growing greater each hour. Powerful French and English reserves -were on the way but they were still distant; meanwhile the local -reserves were being used up. The English were gathering together and -throwing in anyone and everyone to try to delay the German advance; -there were kilometers where only this scratch army offered -resistance—sutlers, supply men, and cooks armed with rifles and -machine guns fighting beside Chinese coolies impressed into a -fighting line.</p> - -<p>Gerry passed a word with an English pilot whom he knew well and who -was just back from over another part of the battle field.</p> - -<p>“Hello, Hull! Your people rather getting into it over my way!”</p> - -<p>“Who? How?” Gerry called.</p> - -<p>“One of your engineer regiments were working behind the lines; line -came back on ’em. They grabbed guns and went in and gave it to the -Huns! Should have seen ’em. Can yet; they’re keeping at it.”</p> - -<p>The blood tingled hotter in Gerry’s veins; his people were fighting! -His countrymen, other than the few who from the first had been -fighting in the foreign legion or scattered in Canadian regiments or -here and there in the flying forces, were having part in this -battle! No great part, at that; and only an accidental part. Simply -a regiment of American engineers, who had been on construction work -for the British Fifth Army, had thrown down their shovels and tools, -grabbed guns, and gone in.</p> - -<p>“You’ve some good girls—some awfully good girls out that way, too!” -the English pilot cried.</p> - -<p>Gerry was in his seat and starting his motor so he just heard that; -he rose from the field and for several moments all his conscious -attention was given to catching proper formation with the machines -returning along with him to the battle; but subconsciously his mind -was going to those girls, the American girls—those “awfully good” -girls out that way. He did not know what they might be doing this -day—what it was which won from the English pilot the praise in his -voice. Gerry had known that American girls had been out “that way,” -he had known about the Smith College girls, particularly—the score -or so who called themselves the Smith College Relief Unit and who, -he understood, had been supplying the poor peasants and looking -after old people and children and doing all sorts of practical and -useful things in little villages about Nesle and Ham. He did not -know any of those girls; but he did know Cynthia Gail; and now, as -he found himself in flight formation and flying evenly, thought of -her emerged more vividly than it had previously upon that morning.</p> - -<p>When the news had reached him far away on the evening before that -the Germans had broken through in that neighborhood where she was, -he had visualized her in his fears as a helpless victim before the -enemy’s advance. The instincts she had stirred in him were to hurry -him to her protection; that morning as he had looked down upon the -refugees on the roads, mentally he had put her among the multitude -fleeing and to be defended. But the shout of the English pilot had -made Gerry think of her as one of those protecting—not precisely a -combatant, perhaps, but certainly no mere non-combatant.</p> - -<p>Of course the English pilot had not mentioned Cynthia Gail; but -Gerry knew that if American girls were proving themselves that -morning, Cynthia Gail was one of them. He had been able, in vivid -moments, to see Agnes Ertyle; for he knew exactly what she would be -doing; but his imagination had failed to bring before him Cynthia -Gail. In the subconscious considerations which through the violence -of his physical actions dwelt on such ideas, this failure had seemed -proof that Agnes Ertyle alone stirred the deepest within him; but -now those visions of the unseen which came quite unbidden and which -he could not control showed him again and again the smooth-skinned, -well-formed face with the blue, brave eyes under thoughtful brows, -and the slender, rounded figure of the girl whom he knew as Cynthia -Gail. And whereas previously he had merely included her among the -many in peril, now dismay for her particularly throbbed through him.</p> - -<p>Her words when they last were together—“A score or so of you felt -you had to do the fighting for a hundred million of us; but you -haven’t now, for we’re coming; a good many of us are here”—no longer -seemed a mere appeal to him to spare himself; it told him that she -was among those on the ground endeavoring to govern the fate of this -day.</p> - -<p>He sighted, before and below, a road where German guns were being -rushed forward; dove down upon them, leading his flight again and -bombed the guns, machine-gunned the artillerymen; he bombed a supply -train of motor lorries; he flew over and machine-gunned two motor -cars with German officers and saw one of the cars overturn. But -German combat pilots were appearing in force all about; Gerry gazed -up and saw a big, black-crossed two-seater accompanied by two -single-seaters maneuvering to dive down upon him.</p> - -<p>He swerved off, therefore, and fled. For a moment he longed for his -swift-darting little Spad instead of this heavier ship which bore -bombs in addition to machine guns. But the Spads of his comrades and -English combat machines appeared; and the German pilots above did -not dare to dive. They circled, awaiting reinforcement which swiftly -came—triplane Fokkers mostly, Gerry thought. As he watched them, he -forgot all about the ground; for the French and the English pilots, -ten thousand feet above him, were starting an attack. He circled and -climbed a few thousand feet; he knew that with his heavy raiding -machine, he could not join that battle. But heavy German -airplanes—for observation, for photographic work, or to guide the -advancing German guns—were appearing in the lower levels and -slipping forward under the protection of the Fokkers and the -Albatrosses. Gerry went for one of these and turned it back; he went -for another—a two-seater—and he saw the German machine gunner fall -forward; he saw the pilot’s hooded head drop; he saw flame flash -from the gasoline tank; the two-seater tumbled and went down.</p> - -<p>He dared not follow it with his eyes even for the short seconds of -its fall; machines from the battle above were coming down where he -was. A Fokker dropped, turning over and over to escape a Spad which -came down on its tail and got it anyway; now a Spad streaked past in -flame. A two-seater—a German machine marked by the big black crosses -under its wings—glided slowly down in a volplane. Gerry circled up -to it, approaching from the side with the lanyard of his machine -guns ready; but the German pilot raised an arm to signal -helplessness. His gunner was dead across his guns; his engine was -gone; he had kept control enough only to glide; and he was gliding, -Gerry saw, with the sun on his right. That meant he was making for -German-held ground. He came beside the gliding two-seater, -therefore, and signaled to the west. The German obeyed and, while -Gerry followed, he glided to the field in the west and landed.</p> - -<p>Gerry came down beside him and took the pilot prisoner; together -they lifted the body of the German observer from his seat and laid -him on the ground. Gerry possessed himself of the German’s maps and -papers.</p> - -<p>The German pilot, who was about Gerry’s own age, had been a little -dazed from the fight in the sky; but Gerry discovered that his -willingness to surrender and the fact that he had made no attempt to -destroy his own machine upon landing was from belief that they had -come down upon ground already gained by the Germans. Whether or not -that was true, at least it appeared to be ground already abandoned -by the English. Certainly no considerable English force existed -between that position and the Germans whom Gerry had seen advancing -two miles away. No batteries were in action nearby; the airplanes -seemed to be standing in an oasis of battle. There was a road a -couple of hundred yards to the south, and, seeing travel upon it, -Gerry took his prisoner in that direction.</p> - -<p>He found refugees upon the road—patient, pitiful families of French -peasants in flight, aiding one another and bearing poor bundles of -their most precious possessions. The sight brought Gerry back to his -first days of the war and to the feelings of the boy he had been in -August, 1914, when he rushed across the channel from England to -offer himself to the Red Cross in France and when he met the first -refugees fleeing before von Klück’s army out of Belgium and -Normandy. He had seen nothing like this in France since then; and -the years of war had not calloused him to these consequences. -Indeed, they had brought to him more terrible realizations than the -horror-struck boy of 1914 had been able to imagine. So these again -were to be visited upon France! And because his people had watched -for almost three years, had kept safely out!</p> - -<p>His prisoner now turned to Gerry and spoke to him in French.</p> - -<p>“It appears,” he corrected the error he had made when Gerry had -taken him, “that you are not my prisoner yet.”</p> - -<p>“No,” Gerry said. “Not yet.”</p> - -<p>A Ford truck passed the farm wains and the miserable column of -marchers. The driver, Gerry saw, was in khaki and was a girl. She -observed him and drew up.</p> - -<p>“Hello,” she hailed alertly, taking in the situation at a glance. -“Do you want to get rid of your prisoner?”</p> - -<p>She was American—one of those “awfully good” girls of whom the -English had told him! And, seeing her and hearing her voice, he knew -what the English pilot had meant; and a bit of pride—tingling, -burning pride for his people—flared up where the moment before had -been only condemnation and despair. For this girl was no mere -driver; she was in charge of the French—a cool, clear-headed -competent commander of these foreign peasants from a village -evacuated under her direction. She had, lying in the hay upon the -floor of the truck, children injured by shell fire and English -wounded whom she had found by the road. She had been under fire; -and, as soon as she could get these people a little farther to the -rear, she was going back under fire to guide away more people. She -was entirely unheroic about it; why, that was the best thing she -could do this day. Did he know something better for her to do?</p> - -<p>“No,” Gerry said. “Are there many more American girls here?” he -asked, gazing toward the German advance.</p> - -<p>“We’re each—or two of us together are taking a village to get the -people out,” the girl said; and she named, at Gerry’s request, some -of the girls and some of the villages.</p> - -<p>“Do you know Cynthia Gail?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“She was going back, the last I heard of her, to Mirevaux.”</p> - -<p>Gerry jerked. “Mirevaux must be taken now.”</p> - -<p>“I heard guns that way. That’s all I know,” the girl said. She raced -her engine; Gerry knew she must go on. He left his prisoner in -charge of a wounded English soldier who was able to walk and he -returned to the machines in the middle of the field. The captured -German airplane was too damaged to remove; so he set it afire and -mounted in his own.</p> - -<p>The battle in the sky had moved off somewhere else long ago; neither -in the air nor upon the ground was there engagement near him. He was -without bombs but he still had machine-gun ammunition; he directed -his course as he rose into the air toward the hamlet of Mirevaux.</p> - -<p>He could see it clearly from a few hundred feet in the sky—see -shells, which must be from German guns, smashing on a hillside on -the south and shells, which must be from an English battery, -breaking about Mirevaux. These told that the Germans indeed were in -the village and some force of English were maintaining themselves on -the hill. He observed a road west of Mirevaux upon which appeared -such a procession as that to which he had entrusted his prisoner. -The English position, which the Germans were shelling, flanked this -road and partially protected it; but Gerry could observe strong -detachments, which must be German patrols, working about the English -to the northwest and toward the road.</p> - -<p>The English could not see them; nor could the refugees on the road -catch sight of them. Gerry sighted a small, black motor car moving -with the processions. Another American girl was driving that, -probably; or at least an American girl was somewhere down there—a -girl with even, blue eyes which looked honestly and thoughtfully -into one’s, a girl with glorious hair which one liked to watch in -the sunlight and which tempted one to touch it, a girl with soft, -round little shoulders which he had grasped, a girl who had gone -into the sea for him, and whom he had carried, warm in his arms.</p> - -<p>A couple of German 77s began puffing shrapnel up about Gerry; for he -was flying low and toward them. But he went lower and nearer and -directly at that patrol. Gerry could see that they were working -nearer the road, with plenty of time to intercept that procession -from Mirevaux; and, though he gave those German guns a perfect -target for a few seconds, he dove down upon the patrol. They were -Jaegers, he thought, as he began to machine-gun them—the sort whom -the Germans liked to put in their advance parties and who had made -their first record in Belgium. Gerry thought of those Jaegers, with -the blood fury of battle hot on them, intercepting that blue-eyed -girl; and when he had overflown them, he swung back and gave it to -them again.</p> - -<p>One of the machine guns which had been firing at him from the ground -or some of the shrapnel from the German 77s had got him, now; for -his ship was drooping on the left; the wings had lost their lift. -When he had overflown the patrol the second time and tried to turn -back, he could not get around; his controls failed. The best he -could do was to half pull up into the wind and, picking a fairly -flat place below, to come down crashing that drooping left wing, -crashing the undercarriage, crashing struts and spars and tangling -himself in wires and bracing cables but missing, somehow, being -hurled upon the engine. He was alive and not very much hurt, though -enmeshed helplessly in the maze of the wreck; and the German gunners -of the 77s either guessed he might be alive or it was their habit to -make sure of every allied airplane which crashed within range, for a -shell smashed thirty yards up the slope beyond him.</p> - -<p>Gerry, unable to extricate himself, crouched below the engine and -the sheathing of the fuselage; a second shell smashed closer; a -third followed. Gerry felt blood flowing inside his clothes and he -knew that he had been hit. But now the German gunner was satisfied -or had other targets for his shells; at any rate, the shells ceased. -Gerry was about a mile away from the gun, he figured; he had flown -perhaps half a mile beyond the Jaeger patrols when he came down. The -road, upon which he had seen the travel, ran just on the other side -of a slope upon which he lay; he could see a stretch of it before it -passed behind the rise of ground and he noticed a black motor -car—possibly the same which he had seen from overhead a few minutes -before—drive toward him. He saw the car halt and a khaki-clad figure -get down from the driver’s seat; it was a skirted figure and small -beside the car; it was a girl!</p> - -<p>The German gunner, who had been giving Gerry attention, also saw the -car; and, evidently, he had the range of that visible stretch of the -road. A shell smashed close; and Gerry saw the girl leap back to her -seat and run the car on while a second shell followed it. The rise -hid the car from Gerry and, also, from the German gunners, for again -the shelling shifted.</p> - -<p>The next shell smashed on the other side of the slope where the road -again came into sight; the car had not yet reached that part of the -road, so Gerry knew that the German artillerymen were merely -“registering” the road to be ready when the car should run into the -open. But the car did not appear; instead, the girl crept about the -side of the slope and advanced toward Gerry. She had lost her hat -and the sun glowed and glinted upon glorious yellow hair. The -pointer of the 77 did not see her or he disregarded her while he -waited for the car to appear on the registered stretch of the road; -but a machine gunner with the Jaegers got sight and opened upon the -slope. Gerry could see the spurt of the bullets in the dry dust of -the planted field; the girl instantly recognized she was fired at -and she sprang sidewise and came forward.</p> - -<p>“Go back!” Gerry called. “Keep away!”</p> - -<p>She stumbled and rolled and Gerry gasped, sure that she was hit; but -she regained her feet instantly and, crouching, ran in behind him. -Her hands—those slender, soft but strong little hands which he had -first touched in Mrs. Corliss’ conservatory weeks ago—grasped him -and held him.</p> - -<p>“Keep down,” Gerry begged of her. “Keep down behind the engine!”</p> - -<p>“You!” she murmured to him. “I thought when I saw you in the air and -when you fought them so, that it might be you! Where are you hurt; -oh, how much?”</p> - -<p>“Not much; I don’t know where, exactly. Keep down behind the engine, -Cynthia!”</p> - -<p>She was not hurt at all, he saw; and though the tangle of wires -enmeshed his legs, he was able to turn about and seize her and press -her down lower. For the machine gunner was spraying the wreck of the -airplane now. She was working with her strong little hands, trying -to untwist and unloop the wires to get him free when Gerry heard the -motor noises of an airplane, descending. He gazed up and saw a -German machine swooping a thousand feet above the ground. The pilot -passed over them and, diving, came back five hundred feet lower; he -took another look, circled and returned barely a hundred yards up. -This time he would fire, Gerry knew; and it was impossible to find -shield at the same time against the flying machine gun and the gun -of the Jaegers. Gerry dragged his automatic from his holster and -aimed, not with any hope of hitting the German machine, but merely -to fire back when fired upon. But he could not twist himself far -enough.</p> - -<p>“Give me the pistol,” he heard Cynthia say; and, as the German flyer -came upon them with his machine gun jetting, he let her hand take -the pistol; and while he lay enmeshed, helpless, he heard her -firing.</p> - -<p>The machine-gun bullets from above splattered past them; the pilot -had overflown. The girl had emptied the magazine of Gerry’s pistol -and she demanded of him more cartridges. He took his pistol; -reloaded it and now, when she reclaimed it, she crouched beside him -and shot through a wooden strut and the wires which had been locking -his legs in the wreckage. He pulled himself free.</p> - -<p>“Now let’s get out of here!” he bid.</p> - -<p>“You’re all right?” she asked.</p> - -<p>He was testing his legs. “All right,” he assured.</p> - -<p>The Jaeger machine gunner had interrupted his fire; and the -airplane, which had attacked, was far away at this moment.</p> - -<p>“I heard you were about here, Cynthia,” Gerry said. “That’s why—when -I had the chance—I came this way.”</p> - -<p>She made no reply as she watched the road to the rear upon which the -refugees were appearing. A shell burst before them.</p> - -<p>“I have to go to them!” Ruth cried.</p> - -<p>“They’ll scatter; see; they’re doing it!” Gerry said, as the French -ran separately through the fields till the rise of ground guarded -them. “But we’d better skip now!”</p> - -<p>He had removed his maps from his machine; warning her, he lit a -match and ignited the wreckage. The flame, bursting from the -gasoline, fed upon the varnished wing fabric, clouding up dense and -heavy smoke which drifted with the breeze and screened them as they -arose and, crouching, ran. The German machine gunner evidently -looked upon the fire as the result of his shots and suspected no -flight behind the smoke. The flyer, who had attacked, likewise -seemed to see the fire as the result of his bullets. He turned away -to other targets.</p> - -<p>Gerry got Ruth, unhurt, to the crest of the slope; they slipped over -it and for the moment were safe. The car which Ruth had driven stood -in the road.</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chXII' title='“How Could This Happen?”'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER XII</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>“HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?”</span> -</h2> - -<p>The French peasants, who had been fired upon and had gained the -protection of the slope, gathered about them.</p> - -<p>“Beyond, also, the road is open to fire,” Gerry informed them in -French; and he directed them to proceed in little groups and by the -fields away from the road.</p> - -<p>“Monsieur le Lieutenant is wounded,” an old man observed -solicitously.</p> - -<p>“Barely at all,” Gerry denied; but swayed as he said so.</p> - -<p>“Your car must go by the road,” Gerry said to Ruth. “You go with -them in the fields; I will take it on for a bit.”</p> - -<p>He meant to relieve her for the run over the exposed stretch. He -tried to step up to the driver’s seat; but his leg would not bear -his weight and he fell backward and would have gone to the ground -had Ruth not caught him.</p> - -<p>“That’s simply a knee twist from being bent under my ship,” he -asserted. “That shrap hardly scratched me,” he referred to the red -spot on his side where her fingers were feeling.</p> - -<p>“Help me lift Monsieur le Lieutenant,” Ruth bid the old peasant. -Gerry tried again to climb alone; but his leg had quite given away. -As they lifted, he pulled himself into the seat and took the wheel.</p> - -<p>“You need both feet for the pedals,” Ruth reminded him, simply; and -he moved over without further protest and let her drive. The car was -a covered Ford truck and Gerry, gazing back, saw an old French -woman, a child, and two men, who had been injured, lying upon the -bedding over the floor. The car was coming to the section of road -which the German gunner had registered and Gerry turned about and -watched Ruth while she drove.</p> - -<p>He had never seen her doing anything like this before; and the sight -of her small, white hands, so steady and firm on the wheel, her -little, slender, booted feet upon the pedals sent a thrill tingling -through him. He was a little dizzy for a moment and he closed his -eyes, clutching to the side of his seat. A shell smashed twenty -yards before them; parts of it hit the car. The shock of it startled -Gerry up; but the girl beside him was not hit nor frightened. -Swiftly she swerved the car to dodge the hole in the road where the -gravel was still slipping and settling; the next shell was behind -and while they fled now, the shells all were behind and farther and -farther back till they ceased.</p> - -<p>Ruth halted her car and waited for her charges to gather on the -road; all of them appeared; none of them had been hurt. The damage -done by the German fire totaled a front wheel much bent and the -radiator ruined.</p> - -<p>“We’ll have to run hot,” Ruth said. “We can get on, if we go -slowly.”</p> - -<p>Gerry attempted to get down to walk; but his twisted left knee would -not bear him at all. His idea had been to return at once, somehow, -to the battle, as soon as this girl who had come to him was in some -sort of safety. He had planned wildly, to attempt to join the -English fighting to the south of Mirevaux. He couldn’t do that now; -but, with strength enough in his leg to move a rudder bar, he could -fly and fight again as soon as he could procure another “ship.” The -only way he could reach the rear and another airplane was to -continue with these refugees and with this girl.</p> - -<p>It was strange that when he had been fighting and had been far from -her, he had felt more strongly about her than he did now—more about -her as a girl, that was, in relation to him as a man. He was close -beside her with her body swaying against his when the car careened -in the pits and ruts of the road. He kept observing her—the play of -color in her smooth skin in the flush of her excitement, the steady, -blue eyes alert upon the road, her full, red little lips pressing -tight together after speaking with him and drawing tiny lines of -strain at the corners of her mouth. He noticed pretty things about -her which he had not before—the trimness of her ankles even under -her heavy boots, the ease with which that slender, well-formed -little body exerted its strength, the way her hair at her temples -went into ringlets when effort and anxiety moistened her forehead. -But he noticed these as though to remember them later; his thought -seemed to store them and save them for feeling at another time; he -was almost aware of going through an experience with her which could -affect him, fully, only afterwards. In the same manner that -subconsciously he had thought about her when all his conscious -thought was absorbed in flying and fighting, now his eyes only -observed her; his soul was blent in the battle.</p> - -<p>He and she, and the rest, were going back—back, kilometer after -kilometer and yet encountering no strong force of English or French -in position to hold that land; and he knew that if that depth of -front was being abandoned as far away to the right and as far away -to the left as he could see, resistance must have broken down over a -much greater front. Indeed, Gerry had himself observed from his -airplane something of the length of the line where the allies were -retreating; but he had not been able, when in the air, and passing -in a few seconds over a kilometer, to feel the disaster as now he -felt it in the swaying seat of the half-wrecked truck creeping along -at the head of a column of refugees. This land which the Germans -were again overrunning in a day was the strip which the English had -freed the year before only through the long, murderous months of the -“blood baths” of the Somme.</p> - -<p>“Do you remember an English officer on the <i>Ribot</i>,” Ruth was asking -of him, “whom I called ‘1582?’”</p> - -<p>“He’s about here?” Gerry inquired.</p> - -<p>“No; but several of his sort are—one particularly, a Lieutenant -Haddon-Staples; I called him, to myself, ‘1583.’”</p> - -<p>“What do you think of his sort now?” Gerry asked, confidently.</p> - -<p>Ruth’s eyes filled suddenly so that she had to raise a hand from the -driving-wheel to dash away the wetness which blurred the road.</p> - -<p>“They’re the most wonderful sportsmen in the world!” Ruth said. -“They don’t care about odds against them; or at least they don’t -complain. Oh, that’s not the word; complaint is about as far from -their attitude as anything you can think of.”</p> - -<p>“I know,” Gerry said.</p> - -<p>“They don’t even—criticize. They just accept the odds, whatever they -are; and go in with all of themselves as though they had a chance to -hold and win and come out alive! They know they haven’t; but you’d -never guess it from them; and there’s none of that ‘We who are about -to die salute you’ idea in them either. They’re sportsmen and -gentlemen!”</p> - -<p>“I know how they make you feel,” Gerry said, watching her keenly -again; the road thereabouts was bad and she couldn’t even glance -around to him. “Rather, you know now how they made me feel, I -think.”</p> - -<p>She made no reply; so he went on. “If they’d say things out to us; -if they had criticized us and damned us and told us we were lying -down behind them, it wouldn’t be so rotten hard to see them. But -they don’t. They just go in as you say; they feel they’ve a fight on -which is their fight and they’re going to fight it whether anyone -else thinks it worth while to fight it or not or whether they have -any chance for winning.”</p> - -<p>Ruth winked swiftly again to clear her eyes; and Gerry, watching -her, wondered what particular experience his general praise had -called up. He did not ask; but she told him.</p> - -<p>“‘1583’ was just that sort of man, Gerry,” she said, using his name -for the first time as simply as he had spoken hers when she had -crouched behind the shield of his engine with him.</p> - -<p>“He’s killed?” Gerry asked.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know; but it’s certain—yes, he’s killed,” she replied.</p> - -<p>“You—cared for him, Cynthia?”</p> - -<p>“He was about here—I mean about Mirevaux—as long as I’ve been. That -was only two weeks—‘a fortnight,’ as he’d say in his funny, English -way—but now it seems——”</p> - -<p>“I know,” Gerry said.</p> - -<p>“He was with his battalion which was lying in reserve. He and some -of the others didn’t have a lot to do evenings so they’d drop in -pretty often at the cottage Mrs. Mayhew and I had where there was -one of those little, portable organs with three octaves and we’d -play their songs sometimes and ours—like <i>Good King Wenceslaus</i> and -<i>Clementine</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Did you play?” Gerry interrupted.</p> - -<p>“Sometimes; and sometimes he would; and we’d all sing,</p> - -<div class='poetry-container'> - <div class='poetry'> - <div class='stanza'> - <div class='verse'>In the cabin, in the cañon,</div> - <div class='verse'>Excavating for a mine;</div> - <div class='verse'>Dwelt a miner, forty-niner—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>All the English liked that sort best with <i>Wait for the Wagon</i>, you -know.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>It was a minute or two before she continued; she was speaking of -evenings none of them older than two weeks and one of them only the -night before last; but they formed part of an experience irrevocable -now and of an epoch past.</p> - -<p>“They knew pretty well what was going to happen to them—that they -would have to be thrown in some day without a chance. But they -talked about coming to America after the war—the mining camps of -Nevada and California, the Grand Cañon, Niagara Falls, and Mammoth -Cave appealed to them, particularly. I asked ‘1583’ once—I knew him -best,” Ruth said; and when she repeated the nickname for him it was -with the wistful fondness with which only such a name may be said, -“if he didn’t want to go back home to England and Suffolkshire after -the war. He said, ‘I’m eager to stay a bit with the pater and the -mater, naturally.’” She was imitating his voice; and Gerry saw that -it made her cry; but she went on. “‘But I can’t stay there, you -know.’</p> - -<p>“I asked, why.</p> - -<p>“‘My friends,’ he said. ‘I’ve not one now. You fancy you’re attached -to a place; but you find, you know, you’ve cared for more than -that.’ Then he changed the subject the way the English always do -when you come to something they feel. He was with me the evening -this battle began; and he knew what was coming. I didn’t see him -again till this morning—early this morning,” she repeated as though -unable to believe the shortness of the time. “He rode over to warn -us; and then, a little later when I was getting my first party of -people out of Mirevaux, I passed him with some more men just like -him going to the firing. He knew he was going to be killed for he’d -told us the Germans had broken through; and we couldn’t hold them. -But he wasn’t thinking about that when he saw me. He just watched me -as I was working to get my people in order and, as he rode past, he -called out, ‘Good old America!’ That to me—one girl getting peasants -out of a village while he and his handful of soldiers were -going—there!” Ruth gestured back toward the battle. “Oh, I wanted to -be a million men for him—for them! ‘Good old America!’ he said. I -saw him, or men whom I think he was with, holding a hill a couple of -miles east an hour later; they were one to ten or one to twenty; I -don’t know what the odds were against them; but they stayed on top -of that hill. I tell you I saw them—stay on top of that hill.”</p> - -<p>“I know,” Gerry said. “I’ve seen them stay on top of a hill. I know -how it is to want to be, for them, a million men!”</p> - -<p>Ruth’s hands on the steering-wheel went bloodless from pressure. -“Our million is coming; thank God, it’s coming! And I believe—I must -believe that somehow it still is right and best that we couldn’t -come before.” She gazed back over the land where the Germans were -advancing; and where the English soldiers were “staying.”</p> - -<p>“How could this happen, this break-through?” she asked. “It wasn’t -just superior numbers; they’ve had that and, at other times, we’ve -had superiority before; but no one ever advanced like this.”</p> - -<p>“They showed an entirely new attack,” Gerry said. “New infantry -formation; new arms—infantry cannon; then there was the mist. And -our intelligence people must have fallen down, too, while theirs -gave them everything they wanted. We didn’t know at all what they -were going to do, but they must have known everything about our -strength, or lack of strength, here.”</p> - -<p>He saw her hands whiten again with their grasp of the wheel and the -little lines deepen under her tight-drawn lips. She had stiffened as -though he had accused her; and while he was wondering why, she -glanced up at him.</p> - -<p>“Then part of this—” her gaze had gone again to the fields being -abandoned—“is my fault, Gerry.”</p> - -<p>That was all she said; but instantly he thought of her accusation of -De Trevenac and what she had told him in the little parlor on the -Rue des Saints Pères; and he was so certain that she was thinking of -it also that he asked:</p> - -<p>“You mean you didn’t tell me all you knew about De Trevenac?”</p> - -<p>“No; I told you everything I knew! Oh, I wouldn’t have held back any -of that. I mean, I haven’t done all I might; you see, I never -imagined anything like this could happen.”</p> - -<p>“What might you have done, Cynthia?” he asked. He had said to her -that time in the parlor on the Rue des Saints Pères that she had -come to do more than mere relief work; but he had not consistently -thought of her as engaged in that more daring work against which he -had warned her.</p> - -<p>“I got so wrapt up in the work at Mirevaux,” she said, avoiding -direct answer. “I thought it was all right to let myself just do -that for a while.”</p> - -<p>“Whereas?” he challenged.</p> - -<p>She leaned forward and turned the ignition switch, stopping the -motor which had been laboring and grinding grievously. “It must cool -off,” she said, leaping down upon the ground. She went about to the -back of the truck and Gerry heard her speaking in French to the -passengers behind him.</p> - -<p>“Grand’mère Bergues,” she said when she returned beside Gerry, “lost -for a moment her twig of the tree. I had to find it for her.”</p> - -<p>“Her twig of what tree?” Gerry asked.</p> - -<p>“I forgot you didn’t know,” and Ruth told him of Grand’mère Bergues’ -tree. “When I convinced her at last,” Ruth added, “that the Boche -had broken through and were coming again, she had a stroke; but even -so she would not let us carry her until I had brought her a twig of -the tree—a twig which was green, and budding, and had sap, though -last year the Boche called that tree destroyed. That now must be her -triumph.”</p> - -<p>Ruth restarted the motor and, when they proceeded, Gerry sat without -inquiring again of what dangerous, indefinite business this girl was -going to do. While he watched her driving, a queer, pulling -sensation pulsed in his breast; it associated itself with a vision -of a young Englishman, who now undoubtedly was dead, standing behind -this girl while she played a little organ with three octaves and -they all sang. This was not jealousy, exactly; it was simply -recognition of a sort of fellowship which she could share which he -would have liked to have discovered himself. It suggested not -something more than he had had with Agnes Ertyle; but something -quite different and which he liked. He tried to imagine Agnes -playing, and singing <i>Clementine</i>, and <i>Wait for the Wagon</i>; and—he -couldn’t. He tried to imagine her crying because someone had called -to her, “Good old England”; and he couldn’t. Agnes cried over some -things—children who were brought to her and badly wounded boys who -died. But Agnes could have told him all that Cynthia had without any -emotion at all. Agnes would have told it quite differently, of -course.</p> - -<p>They were coming in sight of a flying field. “Let me off here, -please,” Gerry asked when they were opposite it.</p> - -<p>When Ruth stopped the car Gerry called for one of the old Frenchmen -to give him a shoulder and he stepped down. “You don’t need much leg -muscle to fly,” he assured Ruth when she observed him anxiously. “If -I can’t steal a ship over there, at least they’ll take care of me.” -He hesitated, looking up at her, unable simply to thank her for what -she had done.</p> - -<p>“Where are you going?” he asked. During their drive they had -discussed various destinations for their party; but could decide -upon none. The final halting place must depend upon the military -situation, and nothing was more unsettled than that. But Gerry was -not referring now to the halting place of the whole party; he knew -that during the last minutes she had formed determinations which -would take her as soon as possible to her other tasks; and she -accepted that in her answer.</p> - -<p>“I’m going to Montdidier—unless it seems better to make for Amiens; -then to Paris as soon as I can.”</p> - -<p>“I see.” He gazed away and up in the air where machines with the -tricolor circle of the allies were flying; and hastily he offered -Ruth his hand. “Good-bye, Cynthia,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Good-bye, Gerry.”</p> - -<p>“Cynthia, when you’re in Paris you’ll stay there?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know.”</p> - -<p>“If you do, where’ll you be?”</p> - -<p>“Milicent’s kept our room in the <i>pension</i> on the Rue des Saints -Pères. I’ll be with her again, I think.”</p> - -<p>“All right! Look out for yourself!”</p> - -<p>“You try to, too!”</p> - -<p>She kept the car standing a few seconds longer watching him while, -with his arm about the old man’s shoulder, he hobbled toward the -flying field. Several minutes later, when she was far down the road, -she gazed back, and saw a combat biplane rise from the field with -what seemed to be particular impatience, and she imagined that he -was piloting that machine. She had passed now from the zone of the -broken front, where all the effort was to throw men—any number and -any sort of men—across the path of the victorious German advance to -the region of retreat, where every sinew and every sense was -strained in the attempt to get men, and guns, and supplies out of -the area of envelopment by the enemy. And dreadful and appalling as -it had been to witness men—too few men and unsupported—moving -forward to immolate themselves in hopeless effort to stay that -German advance, yet it had not been so terrible to Ruth as this -sight and sound of retreat. For the sound—the beat of feet upon the -road, the ceaseless tramp of retreating men, the rumble of guns and -combat trains going back, then the beat, beat, beat of the -retreat—continued into the darkness, when Ruth no longer could see -the road from the little house where she rested. All through the -night it continued till it seemed to Ruth, not something human, but -a cataclysm of nature flowing before a more mighty catastrophe which -no one and nothing could stop.</p> - -<p>Whenever she awoke she heard it; and through the dreams which -harassed the heavy periods of her stupor of exhaustion which served -that night for sleep, that beat of the feet throbbed and throbbed.</p> - -<p>Ruth reached Montdidier at noon of the next day. It was at -Montdidier, accordingly, that she first learned the true magnitude -of the disaster and first heard openly spoken what had been said -only in part before; and that was that the fate of France and of the -allied cause depended now upon the Americans. If they could not -quickly arrive in great force and if, having arrived, they proved -unable to fight on even terms with the Germans, all was lost. France -would not yet give up, in any case; England would hold on; but, -without America, they were beaten.</p> - -<p>And during that day, and through the next, and the next, while Ruth -was unable to leave Montdidier, the disaster grew until it was known -that the British Fifth Army, as an organized force, had ceased to -exist and the Germans, in this single great stroke, had advanced -thirty-five miles and claimed the capture of thirteen hundred guns -and ninety thousand men.</p> - -<p>On Monday, as the Germans yet advanced and moved on Montdidier, Ruth -was in a column of refugees again; she was obliged to abandon her -determined task for the duty of the moment offered to her hands. She -got to Compiègne and there was delayed. Roye, Noyon, Montdidier all -now were taken; and the wounded from that southern flank of the -salient which thrust west toward Amiens were coming back upon -Compiègne; and no man yet could say that the disaster was halted.</p> - -<p>But Foch had come to the command.</p> - -<p>Ruth had tried to learn from men who had returned from the region -where she had left Gerry Hull, what his fate might have been. She -knew that he had been flying and fighting again, for she read in one -of the bulletins which was being issued, that he had been cited in -the orders of the day for Monday; but she learned nothing at all -about him after that until the day after the announcement that all -allied armies were to be under the supreme command of General Foch. -It was Friday, eight days after that first Thursday morning of mist, -and surprise, and catastrophe; and still the Germans fought their -way forward; but for two days now the French had arrived, and were -present in force from Noyon to Moreuil, and for two days the gap -between the British and the French, which the German break-through -had opened, had been closed.</p> - -<p>Gerry upon that day was detailed with a squadron whose airdrome had -been moved beyond Ribecourt; he had been flying daily, and had -fought an engagement that morning, and after returning from his -afternoon reconnaissance over Noyon he had been ordered to rest, as -the situation was becoming sufficiently stabilized to end the long -strain of his too constant flights. Accordingly, he left late in the -afternoon for Compiègne to look for the field hospital where Agnes -Ertyle would be at work. The original site of her tents had been far -within the zone which the Germans had retaken; and Gerry had heard -that she had done wonders during the moving of the wounded.</p> - -<p>He found her on duty, as he knew she would be; she was a trifle -thinner than before, perhaps; her cool, firm hand clasped his just a -bit tensely; her calm, observant eyes were slightly brighter; but -she was in complete control of herself, as she always was, quite -unconfused—even when two nurses came at the same time for emergency -directions—and quite efficient.</p> - -<p>After a while she was able to give him a little time alone; and they -sat in a tent and talked. Gerry had not seen her or heard from her -since the beginning of the battle, and he found her almost -overwhelmed with the completeness of the British defeat and the -destruction of the Fifth Army. She herself knew and her father, who -was dead, had been a close friend of the commanding officers who -were held responsible for the disaster; and together with the shock -of the defeat, went sympathy for them. They were being removed; and -even the English commander-in-chief no longer had supreme command of -his own men.</p> - -<p>“It’s the greatest thing the allies have yet done—one command,” -Gerry said. “We ought to have had it long ago; if we had, the Boche -never would have done what they just have. When you had your own -army and your own command, and the French had theirs, you each kept -your own reserve; and, of course, Ludendorf knew it. Haig expected -an attack upon his part of the front, so he had to keep his reserve -to himself on his part of the line to be ready for it; the French -looked for an attack on their sectors, so they kept their reserves -to themselves; so wherever Ludendorf struck with all his reserves, -he knew he’d meet only half of ours and that it would take five -days—as it did—for the other half to come up. Now one -commander-in-chief, like Foch, can stop all that.”</p> - -<p>“I can believe it was necessary and, therefore, best,” Lady Agnes -said. “Yet I can’t stop being sorry—not merely for our general -officers, but for our men, too. Poor chaps who come to me; they’ve -fought so finely for England; and now the Boche are boasting they’ve -whipped them and beaten England. They everyone of them are so eager -to get well, and go back, and have at them again, and rather show -the Boche that they’ve not—rather show them that England will have -them! Now we’ll not be under our own command; yet we’ll be fighting -just the same for England; the Boche shall find that England will -have them!”</p> - -<p>“You’ll have them!” Gerry assured. “And far quicker than you could -have before.”</p> - -<p>Lady Agnes observed him, a little puzzled. “You used to say ‘we’ -when you spoke of us,” she said gently.</p> - -<p>Gerry flushed. “I was in your army then,” he replied.</p> - -<p>“You’re fighting with us now—wonderfully, Gerry.”</p> - -<p>“Yes; but technically you see, Agnes, I’m with my own forces.”</p> - -<p>He said “my own” with a tone of distinction which surprised himself. -His own forces, except for a few comrade pilots, and for those -engineers who had grabbed rifles, and got into this battle, and -except for those girls—those “awfully good” girls of Picardy—still -were only in training in France or holding down quiet sectors in -Lorraine. But Gerry had been in one of those sectors which had not -been so noted for its tranquillity after “his own” forces had -arrived.</p> - -<p>However, he was not thinking of those forces just then; he was -recalling an American girl who had come to him across open ground in -the sunlight and under machine-gun fire. For a moment he visualized -her as she stumbled and rolled forward, when he thought she was hit; -then he saw her close beside him with the sun on her glorious hair -and her eyes all anxious for him. Words of hers came to him when -Lady Agnes was speaking again her regret that the English could not -have kept their own command.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know how to say it!” that American girl’s words -repeated themselves to Gerry; she was in a yellow dress now, with -bare arms and neck, and quite warm and flushed with her intentness -to explain to him something he could not understand at all. “But at -first France was fighting as France and for France against Germany; -and England, for England, was doing the same. And America couldn’t -do that—I mean fight for America. She couldn’t join with allies who -were fighting for themselves, or even for each other. The side of -the allies had to become more than that before we could go in; and -it is and we’re in!”</p> - -<p>Gerry was understanding that better, now. This unification of the -command, and the yielding of the British was their greatest earnest -of that change which Cynthia Gail had felt before, and gloried in, -and which Agnes Ertyle accepted but yet deplored.</p> - -<p>More wounded came streaming back from the battle and Lady Agnes -returned to duty immediately. “That Miss Gail, who was on the Ribot -with us, was in Compiègne the other day,” Agnes told him when he was -saying good-bye. “She’s doing marvels in sorting out refugees, I -hear.”</p> - -<p>Gerry had been wondering often during the last days about what might -have happened to Cynthia; and he had inquired of several people. But -he had not thought that Lady Agnes might know.</p> - -<p>“She was working at a relief headquarters on Rue Solférino, near the -Place de l’Hôtel de Ville.”</p> - -<p>Gerry wandered into Compiègne, finding the Rue Solférino, which was -the main street of the city, more crowded and congested than ever -before. From the throng before the doors, Gerry quickly located the -quarters near the Hôtel de Ville where Cynthia Gail had been working -and, forcing a way in, he spied a yellow head bent over a little boy -and he heard a gentle, sweet voice speaking, in newly learned -French, interrogations about where the child last had seen his -mother, whether he had aunt or uncle and so on. Gerry went farther -in and made himself known; and when the girl looked up and saw him, -an older American woman—Mrs. Mayhew—looked up, and she observed not -only Gerry but the girl also.</p> - -<p>“Hello,” Ruth said. It was a poor word to encompass all she was -feeling at that moment, which was, first, joy and relief that he was -safe; next, that he had come there to seek her. But the word did, as -it many, many times had done before; and he used the same to -encompass what he felt. “Have you had anything to eat tonight?” he -added after his greeting. He suspected not.</p> - -<p>“I’ll have supper later, thanks,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>“You will not,” Mrs. Mayhew put in. “You can come back after supper, -if you must; but you go out now. Take her with you, Gerry.”</p> - -<p>Which was a command which Gerry obeyed. So they sat together at a -little table in a café, much crowded, and very noisy, and where they -supped in haste; for there was a great multitude to be served. But -they were very light-hearted.</p> - -<p>“You’ve heard the great news about our army?” Ruth asked.</p> - -<p>“That we’re going to be under the command of General Foch like the -English?”</p> - -<p>“Better than that,” Ruth said. “General Pershing has offered all our -forces to the French to use in any way they wish. He’s offered to -break up our brigades, or even our regiments and companies, and let -the French and English brigade our regiments with them, or take our -men as individuals into their ranks, or use us any way they want, -which will help to win. They’re not to think about us—our pride—at -all. They’re just to take us—in any way to help.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Gerry. “I hadn’t heard that.”</p> - -<p>“It’s just announced,” Ruth told him. “I’d just heard. He did it -under the instructions and with the approval of our government. I -think—I think it’s the finest, most unselfish offer a nation ever -made! All we have in any way that’s best for the cause!”</p> - -<p>Gerry sat back while hot rills of prickling blood tingled to his -temples. “I think so, too, Cynthia,” he said. And again that evening -words of hers, spoken long ago, seized him. “Oh, I don’t know how or -when it will appear; but I know that before long you will be prouder -to be an American than you ever dreamed you could be!”</p> - -<p>Part of that pride was coming to him, then, incredible as it would -have seemed to him even a few days ago, when in the midst of -disaster unparalleled and due to the tardiness of his country. For, -though his country had not come in till so late, now it was offering -itself in a spirit unknown in national relations before.</p> - -<p>When they had finished their supper, he brought her back to her work -and himself returned to his airdrome. The next day Ruth found a -chance to journey to Paris.</p> - -<p>For information—accurate, dependable word of German intentions and -German preparations for the next attack—was the paramount essential -now. This first assault at last was stopped; but only after -tremendous catastrophe; and the Germans still possessed superiority -in physical strength as great as before. And they owned, even more -than before, confidence in themselves, while the allies’ at least -had been shaken. The Germans kept also, undoubtedly, the same powers -of secrecy which had enabled them to launch their tremendous -onslaught as a surprise to the allies, while they themselves -accurately had reckoned the allied strength and dispositions.</p> - -<p>Ruth did not hope, by herself, to change all that. The wild dreams -of the girl who had taken up the bold enterprise offered her in -Chicago, had become tempered by experience, which let her know the -limits within which one person might work in this war; but the -probability that she would be unable to do greatly only increased -her will to do whatever she could.</p> - -<p>Thus she returned to Paris to endeavor to encounter again the enemy -agents who would send her through Switzerland into Germany. As she -knew nothing of them, she must depend upon their seeking her; so she -went at once to her old room in the <i>pension</i> upon the Rue des -Saints Pères. Arriving late in the afternoon, she found Milicent -home from work—a Milicent who put arms about her and cried over her -in relief that she was safe. Then Milicent brought her a cablegram.</p> - -<p>“This came while you were gone, dear. I opened it and tried to -forward it to you.”</p> - -<p>Ruth went white and her heart halted with fear. Had something -happened at home—to her mother or to her sisters?</p> - -<p>“What is it?”</p> - -<p>“Your brother’s badly wounded. He’s here in a hospital, Cynthia!”</p> - -<p>“My brother!” Ruth cried. It had come to her as Cynthia Gail, of -course. She had thought, when nearing the <i>pension</i>, that probably -she would find an accumulation of mail to which, as Cynthia, she -must reply. But she had been Cynthia so long now that she had almost -ceased to fear an emergency. Her brother, of course, was Charles -Gail, who had quarreled with his father and of whom nothing had been -heard for four years.</p> - -<p>Ruth took the message and learned that Charles had been with the -Canadians since the start of the war; he had enlisted under an -assumed name; but when wounded and brought to Paris, he had given -his real name and asked that his parents be informed. The -information had reached them; so his father had cabled Cynthia to -try to see Charles before he died.</p> - -<p>“I told Lieutenant Byrne about it,” Milicent said to Ruth.</p> - -<p>“Lieutenant Byrne?”</p> - -<p>“Why, yes; wasn’t that right? He called here for you last week; and -several times since. He said he was engaged to you; why—isn’t he?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, he was. That’s all right,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>“So he’s been about to see your brother.”</p> - -<p>“How is he? Charles, I mean, of course.”</p> - -<p>“He was still living yesterday.”</p> - -<p>“Lieutenant Byrne is still here?”</p> - -<p>“As far as I know, he is.”</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chXIII' title='Byrne Arrives'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER XIII</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>BYRNE ARRIVES</span> -</h2> - -<p>Ruth turned, without asking more, and went into the room which had -been hers, and shut herself in alone. She dared not inquire anything -further, or permit anything more to be asked of her; she dared not -let Milicent see her until she had time to think.</p> - -<p>Milicent and she long ago had given to one another those intimate -confidences about their personal affairs which girls, who share the -same rooms, usually exchange; but Ruth’s confidences, of course, had -detailed the family situation of Cynthia Gail. Accordingly, Ruth -knew that Milicent had believed that the boy, whose picture was the -third in the portfolio of Cynthia’s family, which Ruth always had -kept upon the dresser, was Ruth’s brother. Milicent would believe, -therefore, that it was this sudden discovery of her brother dying in -a Paris hospital which had shocked Ruth into need for being alone -just now.</p> - -<p>Indeed, feeling for that boy, whose picture she had carried for so -long, and about whom she had written so many times to his parents, -and who was mentioned in some loving manner in almost every one of -those letters which Ruth had received from Decatur, had its part in -the tumult of sensations oversweeping her. But dominant in that -tumult was the knowledge that his discovery—and, even more -certainly, the arrival of George Byrne—meant extinction of Ruth as -Cynthia Gail; meant annihilation of her projects and her plans; -meant, perhaps, destruction of her even as Ruth Alden.</p> - -<p>Ruth had not ceased to realize, during the tremendous events of -these last weeks, that at any moment someone might appear to betray -her; and she had kept some calculation of the probable consequence. -When she had first embraced this wild enterprise, which fate had -seemed to proffer, she had entered upon considerable risks; if -caught, she would have the difficult burden of proof, when she was -taking the enemy’s money and using a passport supplied by the enemy -and following—outwardly, at least—the enemy’s instructions, that she -was not actually acting for the enemy. But if she had been betrayed -during the first days, it would have been possible to show how the -true Cynthia Gail met her death and to show that she—Ruth -Alden—could have had no hand in that. But now more than two months -had passed since that day in Chicago when Ruth Alden took on her -present identity—more than two months since the body of Cynthia -Gail, still unrecognized, must have been cremated or laid away in -some nameless grave. Therefore, the former possibility no longer -existed.</p> - -<p>Horror at her position, if she suddenly faced one of Cynthia Gail’s -family, sometimes startled Ruth up wide-awake in bed at night. She -had not been able to think what to do in such case as that; her mind -had simply balked before it; and every added week with its letters -subscribed by those forged “Thias” to Cynthia’s father, and those -intimate endearments to Cynthia’s mother, and those letters about -love to George Byrne—well, every day had made it more and more -impossible to prepare for the sometime inevitable confession.</p> - -<p>For confession to Cynthia’s family must come if Ruth lived; but -only—she prayed—after the war and after she had done such service -that Cynthia’s people could at least partially understand why she -had tricked them. The best end of all, perhaps—and perhaps the most -probable—was that Ruth should be killed; she would die, then, as -Cynthia, and no one would challenge the dead. That was how Ruth -dismissed the matter when the terror within clamored for answer. But -she could not so dismiss it now.</p> - -<p>Impulse seized her to flee and to hide. But, in the France of the -war, she could not easily do that; nor could she slip off from -Cynthia’s identity and name without complete disaster. Anywhere she -went—even if she desired to take lodgings in a different zone in -Paris, or indeed if she was to dwell elsewhere in the same zone—she -must present Cynthia’s passport and continue as Cynthia. And other, -and more conclusive reasons, controlled her.</p> - -<p>Her sole justification for having become Cynthia Gail was her belief -that she could go into Germany by aid of the German agents who would -know her as Cynthia Gail. They could find her only if she went about -Cynthia Gail’s work and lived at the lodgings here.</p> - -<p>Ruth was getting herself together during these moments of -realization. She opened the bedroom door and called in Milicent.</p> - -<p>Charles Gail had been gassed. Milicent had not seen him, but -Lieutenant Byrne had visited him and repeated to Milicent that he -was not sure whether Charles knew him. Ruth scarcely could bear -thought of visiting Charles Gail and pretending that she was -Cynthia; but it was evident that he was so weak that he would -suspect nothing.</p> - -<p>The chance of George Byrne betraying her was greater. He had been in -Paris, Milicent said, upon some special duty of indefinite duration. -Every time he had called he had left messages with Milicent and had -assumed that he might not be able to return to the Rue des Saints -Pères.</p> - -<p>“He was here the day we got the news that Mirevaux was taken,” -Milicent said. “We tried in every way to get word of you. He was -almost crazy, dear. He loves you; don’t you ever doubt that!”</p> - -<p>Ruth made no reply, though Milicent waited, watching her.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t say anything to him about Gerry Hull, dear.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve written him about meeting Gerry,” Ruth said, simply. “I’ll -start for the hospital now, Mil.”</p> - -<p>“You’ll let me go with you, Cynthia?”</p> - -<p>“Thanks; but it’s not—I think I’d rather not.”</p> - -<p>Milicent gazed at her, a little surprised and hurt, but she made no -further offer.</p> - -<p>Ruth went out on the Rue des Saints Pères alone; a start of panic -seized her as she gazed up and down the little street—panic that -from a neighboring doorway, or about one of the corners, George -Byrne might suddenly appear and speak to her.</p> - -<p>The late spring afternoon was clear and warm; and that part of Paris -was quiet, when from Ruth’s right and ahead of her came the resound -and the concussion of a heavy explosion. Ruth gazed up, -instinctively, to find the German airplane from which a torpedo -might have dropped; but she saw only the faint, dragon-fly forms of -the French sentinel machines which constantly stood guard over -Paris. They circled and spun in and out monotonously, as usual, and -undisturbed at their watch; and, with a start, Ruth suddenly -remembered. From beyond the German lines in the forest of Saint -Gobain, Paris was being bombarded by some new monster of Krupp’s; -the explosion where a haze of débris dust was hanging over the roofs -a half mile or more away had been the burst of a shell from that -gun. Since the start of the German assault the Germans had been -sending these random shells to strike and kill at every half hour -for several hours upon almost every day. So Paris had learned to -recognize them; Paris had become accustomed to them; Parisians -shrugged when they struck. But Ruth did not.</p> - -<p>The studied brutality of that German gun, more than sixty miles -away, dispatching its unaimed shells to do methodical, -indiscriminate murder in the city, was the sort of thing Ruth needed -at that moment to steady her to what lay before her. She was setting -herself to this, as to the rest, to help stop forever deeds like the -firing of that gun. She hastened on more resolutely; the gun fired -again, its monstrous, random shell falling in quite another quarter. -Presenting herself at the doors of the hospital, she ascertained -that Sergeant Charles Gail, who had originally been enrolled in a -Canadian battalion under another name, was still living. -Consultation with a nurse evoked the further information that he was -conscious at the present minute, but desperately weak; he had been -asking many times for his friends or word of his people; it was -therefore permissible—indeed, it was desirable—that his sister see -him.</p> - -<p>Ruth followed the nurse between the long rows of beds where boys and -men lay until the nurse halted beside a boy whose wide-open eyes -gazed up, unmoving, at the ceiling; he was very thin and yellow, but -his brows yet held some of the boldness, in the set of his chin was -still some of the high spirit of defiance of the picture in the -portfolio—the boy who had quarreled with his father four years ago -and who had run away to the war.</p> - -<p>“Here is your sister,” the nurse told him gently in French.</p> - -<p>“My sister?” he repeated the French words while his eyes sought and -found Ruth. A tinge of color came to his cheek; with an effort a -hand lifted from the coverlet.</p> - -<p>“Hello, Cynth,” he said. “They said—you were—here.”</p> - -<p>Ruth bent and kissed his forehead. “All right, Cynth,” he murmured -when she withdrew a little. “You can do that again.”</p> - -<p>Ruth did it again and sat down beside him. His hand was in hers; and -whenever she relaxed her tight grasp of it he stirred impatiently. -He did not know she was not his sister. His eyes rested upon hers, -but vacantly; he was too exhausted to observe critically; his sister -had come, they said; and if she was not exactly as he remembered -her, why he had not seen her for four years; a great deal had -happened to her, and even more had happened to him. Her lips were -soft and warm as his sister’s always had been; her hands were very -gentle, and it was awfully good to have her there.</p> - -<p>Ruth was full of joy that she had dared to come; for she was, to -this boy, his sister.</p> - -<p>“Tell me—about—home,” he begged her.</p> - -<p>“I’ve brought all my letters,” she said; and opening them with one -hand—for he would not have her lose grasp of him—she read the home -news until the nurse returned and, nodding, let Ruth know she must -go.</p> - -<p>He could not follow in his mind the simple events related in the -letters; but he liked to hear the sentences about home objects, and -the names of the people he had loved, and who loved him.</p> - -<p>“You’ll—come back—tomorrow, Cynth?” he pleaded.</p> - -<p>Ruth promised and kissed him again and departed.</p> - -<p>It was quite dark now on the streets with only the sound of the -evening bustle. The long-range German gun had ceased firing; but the -dim lights beside doorways proved that on this clear, still night -the people of Paris realized the danger of air raids. Ruth was -hurrying along, thinking of the boy she had left and of his comrades -in the long rows of beds; from them her thoughts flew back to the -battle, to “1583” and his English on the hill, to Grand’mère -Bergues’ farm, and to Gerry Hull; she thought of the German soldiers -she had seen with him and of her errand to their land. Almost before -she realized it, she was turning into the little street of the Holy -Fathers when a man, approaching out of the shadows, suddenly halted -before her and cried out:</p> - -<p>“Cynthia!”</p> - -<p>The glow of light was behind him, so she could not make out his -face; but she knew that only one stranger, recognizing her as -Cynthia, could have cried out to her like that; so she spoke his -name instantly, instinctively, before she thought.</p> - -<p>Her voice either was like Cynthia’s or, in his rush of feeling, -George Byrne did not notice a difference. He had come before her and -was seizing her hands; his fingers, after their first grasp, moved -up her arms. “Cynthia; my own Cynthia,” he murmured her name. At -first he had held her in the glow of the light the better to see -her; but now he carried her back with him into the shadow; and his -arms were around her; he was crushing her against him, kissing her -lips, her cheeks, her lips again, her hands from which he stripped -the gloves.</p> - -<p>She strained to compress her repulse of him. He was not rough nor -sensuous; he simply was possessing himself of her in full passion of -love. If she were Cynthia, who loved this man, she would have clung -in his embrace in the abandonment of joy. Ruth tried to think of -that and control herself not to repel him; but she could not. -Reflexes, beyond her obedience, opposed him.</p> - -<p>Ever since Milicent had informed her that he was in Paris, Ruth had -been forming plans for every contingency of their meeting; but this -encounter had introduced elements different from any expectations. -If this visit to the street of the Holy Fathers was to be his last -one before leaving Paris, then perhaps she had better keep him out -upon the street in the dark and play at being Cynthia until she -could dismiss him. She must feel—or at least she must betray—no -recoil of outrage at his taking her into his arms. He had had that -right with Cynthia Gail. Though he and Cynthia had quarreled—and -Ruth had never mended that quarrel—yet Cynthia and he had loved. Too -much had passed between them to put them finally apart. And now, as -Ruth felt his arms enfolding her, his lips on hers, and his breath -whispering to her his passionate love, she knew that Cynthia could -not have forbidden this.</p> - -<p>He took Ruth’s struggle as meant to tempt his strength and he -laughed joyously as, very gently, he overpowered her. She tried to -cease to struggle; she tried to laugh as Cynthia would have laughed; -but she could not. “Don’t!” she found herself resisting. “Don’t!”</p> - -<p>“Oh! I hurt you, dearest?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said; though he had not. And remorsefully and with -anxious endearments, he let her go.</p> - -<p>“You’ve heard about Charles?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“I’ve just come from him.”</p> - -<p>“He’s—the same?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>She stood gasping against the wall of a building, entirely in the -shadow herself, with the little light which reached them showing her -his face. Ruth liked that face; and she liked the girl whom she -played at being—that Cynthia whose identity she was carrying on, but -about whom she yet knew so little—for having loved this man. George -Byrne had been clean-living; he was strong and eager, but gentle, -too. He had high thoughts and resolute ideals. These he had told her -in those letters which had come; but Ruth had not embodied them in -him till now. She was recovering from the offense of having anyone’s -arms but Gerry’s about her. She was not conscious of thinking of -Gerry that way; only, his arms had been about her, he had held her; -and, because of that, what she had just undergone had been more -difficult to bear.</p> - -<p>“I love you; you love me, Cynthia?” Byrne was begging of her now.</p> - -<p>“Of course I do,” she said.</p> - -<p>“There’s not someone else, then? Tell me, Cynthia!”</p> - -<p>“No—no one else,” she breathed. What could she say? She was not -speaking for herself; but for Cynthia; and now she was absolutely -sure that, for Cynthia, there could have been no one else. But she -could not deceive him.</p> - -<p>“My God!” he gasped the realization to himself, drawing back a -little farther from her. “Then that’s—that’s been the matter all the -time.”</p> - -<p>“All what time?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Since you met Gerry Hull in Chicago.”</p> - -<p>He meant, of course, since the girl who had loved him had died; but -he did not know that. He had felt a change in the letters which had -come to him which he could not explain as merely the result of their -quarrel. Another man seemed to him the only possible explanation.</p> - -<p>Someone opened a door behind them; and Ruth withdrew from the shaft -of light. “We can’t stay here, George,” she said.</p> - -<p>She thought that now he was noticing a difference in her voice; but -if he did, evidently he put it down as only part of her alteration -toward him.</p> - -<p>“Where can we go?” he asked her.</p> - -<p>“Not back to the <i>pension</i>,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>“No; no! Can’t you stay out with me here? We can walk.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>He faced down the street of the Holy Fathers away from the -<i>pension</i>; she came beside him. He took her hand and for a moment -held it as, undoubtedly, he and Cynthia had done when walking in -darkened streets together; but after a few steps he released her.</p> - -<p>“Your hand’s thinner, Cynthia.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose so.”</p> - -<p>“You’re a little thinner all over. I can’t see you well; but you -felt that way,” he said a little sadly, referring to his embrace -which she had broken. “You’ve been overdoing, of course.”</p> - -<p>She made no reply; and for several seconds he offered nothing more -but went on, gazing down at her. “You’ve been fine, Cynthia, in -getting those people out.” He spoke of what he had heard of her work -in the retreat. “I knew ten days ago you were in it; but I couldn’t -go to you! I tried to; I tried to get into the fight. We all -tried—our men; but they didn’t want us. Except Gerry Hull, of -course, and a few like him.”</p> - -<p>He said this so completely without bitterness—with envy, only—that -Ruth felt more warmly for him. “It’s Gerry Hull, isn’t it, Cynthia?” -he demanded directly.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she admitted now. Denial had become wholly impossible; -moreover, by telling the truth—or that much of the truth which had -to do with Gerry Hull—she might send George Byrne away. It was a -cruel wrong to him, and to the girl who was dead; but the wrong -already was done. Ruth merely was beginning herself to reap some of -the fruits of her deception.</p> - -<p>“You love him?” Byrne inquired of her inevasively.</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“He loves you?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know.”</p> - -<p>“What’s he said to you?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing—about loving me.”</p> - -<p>“But he loves you, all right; he must, if he knows you!” Byrne -returned in pitiful loyalty to his Cynthia. “How much has gone on -between you?” he demanded.</p> - -<p>Ruth related to him much about her meetings with Gerry, while they -walked side by side about the Paris streets. A dozen times she was -on the point of breaking down and telling him all the truth; when -his hand reached toward hers, instinctively, and suddenly pulled -away; when they passed a light and, venturing to gaze up, she saw -his face as he looked down at her; when he asked her questions or -offered short, hoarse interjections, she almost cried out to him -that she was a fraud; the girl he had loved, and who she was saying -had turned from him, was dead and had been dead all that time during -which he had felt the difference; she had never met Gerry Hull at -all.</p> - -<p>“What are you stopping for?” he asked her at one of these times. -“Thinking about the Sangamon River?”</p> - -<p>That was the Illinois river which flowed close by Cynthia Gail’s -home. And Ruth knew from his voice that by the river Cynthia and he -first had known love.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” Ruth said; but now her courage completely failed her.</p> - -<p>“What did you say to me, then; oh, what did we both say, Cynthia?”</p> - -<p>This was no test or challenge of Ruth; it was simply a cry from his -heart.</p> - -<div class='poetry-container'> - <div class='poetry'> - <div class='stanza'> - <div class='verse'>How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,</div> - <div class='verse'>I love thee to the depth and height....</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>He was starting to quote something which they used to repeat -together.</p> - -<p>“Go on, Cynthia!” he charged.</p> - -<p>“I can’t,” Ruth cried.</p> - -<p>“You can’t—after you found it and taught it to me? ‘<i>I love thee -with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life</i>,’” he quoted -bitterly to her. “Let me look at you better, Cynthia!”</p> - -<p>They were passing a light and he drew her closer to it.</p> - -<p>“What has happened to you?” he whispered to her aghast when he had -searched her through and through with his eyes. Then, “<i>Who are -you?</i>”</p> - -<p>He had made, he realized, some frightful mistake; how he could have -come to make it, he did not know. “You’re not Cynthia Gail!” he -cried. For an instant, that discovery was enough for him. The agony -which he had been suffering this last half hour was not real; the -girl whom he had found on the street never had been his; they had -both been going about only in some grotesque error.</p> - -<p>“No; I’m not Cynthia Gail,” Ruth told him.</p> - -<p>“Then where is she?” he demanded. “Where is my Cynthia?” His hands -were upon Ruth and he shook her a little in the passion of his -demand. He could not even begin to suspect the truth; but—from sight -of her now—fear flicked him. If this girl was not Cynthia——</p> - -<p>“How are you so like her?” he put his challenge aloud. “Why did you -pretend to be her? Why? You tell me why!”</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you,” Ruth said. “But not here.”</p> - -<p>“Where?”</p> - -<p>“We must find some place where we can talk undisturbed; where we can -have a long talk.”</p> - -<p>“Take me to her, first. That’s all I care about. I don’t care about -you—or why you did that. I don’t care, I say. Take me to Cynthia; or -I’ll go there.”</p> - -<p>He started away toward the Rue des Saints Pères and the <i>pension</i>; -so Ruth swiftly caught his sleeve.</p> - -<p>“You can’t go to her!” Ruth gasped to him. “She’s not there. Believe -me, you can’t find her!”</p> - -<p>“Why not?”</p> - -<p>“She’s—we must find some place, Mr. Byrne!”</p> - -<p>“She’s—what? Killed? Killed, you were going to say?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; she’s been killed.”</p> - -<p>“In Picardy, you mean? Where? How? Why, she was at her rooms two -hours ago. Miss Wetherell told me; or was she lying to me?”</p> - -<p>“I was at the rooms two hours ago,” Ruth said. “Miss Wetherell knows -me as Cynthia Gail. I’ve been Cynthia Gail since January.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean? How?”</p> - -<p>“Cynthia Gail died in January, Mr. Byrne.”</p> - -<p>“What? How? Where?”</p> - -<p>“She was killed—in Chicago.”</p> - -<p>“That’s a lie! Why, I’ve been hearing from her myself.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve been hearing from me. I’m Cynthia Gail, I tell you. I’ve -been Cynthia Gail since January.”</p> - -<p>He caught another glimpse of her face; and his impetuousness to -start to the Rue des Saints Pères collapsed, pitifully. “Where shall -we go?” he asked.</p> - -<p>Ruth gazed about, uncertainly; she had not attended to their -direction; and now she found herself in a strange, narrow street of -tiny shops and apartments, interrupted a half square ahead by a -chasm of ruins and strewn débris, where one of those random shells -from the German long-range gun, or a bomb dropped from a -night-raiding Gotha recently had struck. The destruction had been -done sufficiently long ago, however, for the curiosity of the -neighborhood to have been already satisfied and for all treasures to -have been removed. The ruin was fenced off, therefore, and was -unguarded. Ruth gazed into the shell of the building and Byrne, -glancing in also, saw that in the rear were apartments half wrecked -and deserted, but which offered sanctuary from the street.</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chXIV' title='Full Confession'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER XIV</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>FULL CONFESSION</span> -</h2> - -<p>“No one will be likely to come in here,” Ruth said, and stepped into -the house.</p> - -<p>Byrne followed her without comment, quite indifferent to their -surroundings. When Ruth spoke to him again about the house, he -replied vacantly; his mind was not here, but with Cynthia Gail, -where he had last seen her in Chicago that Sunday night in January -when they had parted. What had thereafter happened to her was the -first matter to him.</p> - -<p>Ruth, exploring the ruin, came upon a room which seemed to have been -put in some sort of order, so far as she could see from the dim -light which came through the doorway.</p> - -<p>“Give me a match,” she asked Byrne; he took a matchbox from his -pocket and, striking a light, he held it while they peered about. -There was a fixture protruding from the wall, but no light resulted -when Ruth turned the switch. Byrne’s match went out; he struck -several others before their search discovered a bit of a candle in -an old sconce in a corner. Byrne lit it, and Ruth closed the door -which led into what had been a hallway. She returned to Byrne, who -had remained in the corner where the candle diffused its light. -There was a built-in bench there beside an old fireplace, a couple -of old chairs and a table.</p> - -<p>“Let’s sit down,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>“You sit down,” Byrne bid. “I’ll—” he did not finish his sentence; -but he remained standing, hands behind him, staring down at her as -she seated herself upon the bench.</p> - -<p>“Now,” he said to her.</p> - -<p>His lips pressed tight and Ruth could see that he jerked with short -spasms of emotion which shuddered his shoulders suddenly together -and shook his whole body.</p> - -<p>Ruth had desired the light instinctively, with no conscious reason; -the same instinct which made her need to see him before she could go -on, probably affected him; but with him had been the idea that the -light would banish the illusion which overswept him again and again -that this girl still was his Cynthia. But the faint, flickering -illumination from the candle had failed to do that; it seemed, on -the contrary, at times to restore and strengthen the illusion. A -better light might have served him more faithfully; and if he -brought her close to the candle and scrutinized her again as he had -under the light of the street, he would see surely that she was -someone else. But here, Ruth realized, she was falling into the -postures of the girl who was dead.</p> - -<p>“Cynthia!” Byrne whispered again to her.</p> - -<p>“What I know about Cynthia Gail,” Ruth said to him gently then, “is -this.” And she told, almost without interruption from him, how -Cynthia had met her death. Ruth did not explain how she had learned -her facts; for a while the facts themselves were overwhelming -enough. He made sure that he could learn nothing more from her -before he challenged her as to how she knew.</p> - -<p>“You read this in a newspaper, you said?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; in all the Chicago newspapers,” Ruth replied. “I read the -accounts in all to find out everything which was known about her.”</p> - -<p>“Wait now! You said no one knew her; she was not identified.”</p> - -<p>“No; she was not.”</p> - -<p>“Then you saw her? You identified her?”</p> - -<p>“No; I never saw her.”</p> - -<p>“Then how do you know it was Cynthia? See here; what are you holding -from me? How do you know she’s dead at all?”</p> - -<p>“The Germans told me. The Germans said that she was the girl who was -killed in that wreck.”</p> - -<p>“The Germans? What Germans? What do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“A German—I don’t know who—but some German identified her from her -passport and took the passport.”</p> - -<p>“Why? How do you know that? How did you get into her affairs, -anyway?”</p> - -<p>“Because I was like her,” Ruth said. “I happened to be so very like -her that——”</p> - -<p>“That what?” He was standing over her now, shaking, controlling -himself by intervals of effort; and Ruth faltered, huddling back a -little farther from him and gazing up at him aghast. She had -determined, a few minutes earlier, that there had become no -alternative for her but to confess to him the entire truth; but the -truth which she had to tell had become an incredible thing, as the -truth—the exact truth of the circumstances which fix fates—has a way -of becoming.</p> - -<p>Desperately her mind groped for a way to arrange the events of that -truth in a way to make him believe; but each moment of delay only -made her task more impossible. He had roused from the suspicion, -which had begun to inflame him when they were yet on the street, to -a certainty that the girl whom he loved had been foully dealt by.</p> - -<p>“That what?” he demanded again.</p> - -<p>So Ruth told him about herself, and the first meeting with Gerry -Hull, and the pencil boxes, and the beggar on State Street. She did -not proceed without interruptions now; he challenged and catechized -her. If he had refused her whole story, it would not have been so -bad; but he was believing part of it—the part which fitted his -passions. He believed that the Germans had found the body of Cynthia -Gail, and he believed more than that. He believed that they had -killed her, and he cried out to Ruth to tell him when, and how. He -believed that the Germans, having killed Cynthia, had tried to make -use of her identity and her passport; and that they had succeeded! -His hands were upon Ruth once more, holding her sternly and firmly.</p> - -<p>“I put you under arrest,” he said to her hoarsely, “as accessory in -the murder of Cynthia Gail and as a German spy.”</p> - -<p>And yet, as he held her there before him in the dim light of the -tallow wick in the sconce upon the wall, she seemed to him, for -flashes of time, to be the girl he accused her of having killed.</p> - -<p>“Cynthia; where are you?” he pleaded with her once as though, within -Ruth, was the soul of his love whom he could call to come out and -take possession of this living form.</p> - -<p>Then he had her under arrest again. “Come with me!” he commanded, -and he thrust her toward the door. But now Ruth fought against him.</p> - -<p>“No; we must stay here!”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“Till you will believe in me!”</p> - -<p>“Then we’ll never leave here. Will you come, or must I take you?”</p> - -<p>“Leave me alone just a minute.”</p> - -<p>“So you can get away?”</p> - -<p>“No; just you stay here. I’ll go back there,” Ruth tossed toward the -corner where she had sat. “There’s no way out. Only—let go of me!”</p> - -<p>He did so, watching her suspiciously. She dropped into her seat in -the corner under the candle. “I’ve told you why I did this,” she -said.</p> - -<p>“And you didn’t fool me.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve no proof of anything I’ve told you,” Ruth went on, “only -because, if you’ll think about it, you’ll see I couldn’t carry -proof.”</p> - -<p>“I should say not.”</p> - -<p>“But I’ve done something since I’ve been here which proves what I -am.”</p> - -<p>“What? Helping refugees out of Picardy? What does that prove—except -that you’ve nerve?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing,” Ruth admitted. “If I was a German agent, I might have -done that. I wasn’t thinking of that.”</p> - -<p>“What of, then?”</p> - -<p>She was thinking about her exposure of De Trevenac; but, though now -it was known that Louis de Trevenac had been proved a spy, had been -tried and punished, no explanation had been given as to how he had -been caught. Those who tried him had not known, perhaps; only Gerry -knew.</p> - -<p>“Gerry Hull will tell you,” Ruth replied. “I don’t ask you to take -my word about myself anymore; I ask you only, before you accuse me, -to send for him.”</p> - -<p>“Gerry Hull!” Byrne iterated, approaching her closely again and -gazing down hostilely. For an instant he had not been able to -disassociate Gerry Hull from himself as a rival for Cynthia Gail. -“So he knows all about you, does he?”</p> - -<p>“No; he thinks I am Cynthia Gail; but——”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“He knows—he must know that, whoever I am, I’m loyal! So send for -him, or go and speak to him before you do anything more; that’s all -I ask. Oh, I know this has been horrible for you, Mr. Byrne.” For -the first time Ruth was losing control of herself. “But do you -suppose it’s been easy for me? And do you suppose I’ve done it for -myself or for any adventure to see the war or just to come here? -I’ve done it to go into Germany! Oh, you won’t stop me now! For if -you leave me alone—don’t you see—I may get into Germany tomorrow or -this week or anyway before the next big attack can come! What do I -count, what do you count, what can the memory of Cynthia Gail count -in comparison with what I may do if I can go on into Germany? -What——”</p> - -<p>“Don’t cry!” Byrne forbade her hoarsely, seizing her shoulder and -shaking her almost roughly. “My God, Cynthia,” he begged, “don’t -cry.”</p> - -<p>He had called her by that name again; and Ruth knew that, not her -appeal, but her semblance in her emotion to Cynthia, had overcome -him for the moment.</p> - -<p>“I’m not going to cry,” Ruth said. “But——”</p> - -<p>He stopped her brusquely. He seemed afraid, indeed, to let her go -on. “Whether I’ve got to bring you to the army authorities and give -you over at once under arrest,” he said coldly, “is up to you. If -you agree to go with me quietly—and keep your agreement—I’ll take -you along myself.”</p> - -<p>“Where?” Ruth asked.</p> - -<p>“I know some people, whom I can trust and who can take you in charge -till I can talk to Hull. He’s the only reference you care to give?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said.</p> - -<p>“If he stands for you, that won’t mean anything to me, I might as -well tell you,” Byrne returned. “You’ve probably got him fooled; you -could do it, all right, I guess.”</p> - -<p>“Then what’s the use in your sending for him?”</p> - -<p>“Oh; you think now there’s none? It was your idea, not mine.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll go with you quietly to your friends,” Ruth decided, ending -this argument. “I’ll understand that you’re going to communicate -with Gerry Hull about me.”</p> - -<p>She arose and Byrne seized her arm firmly. He blew out the candle -and, still clasping her, he groped his way to the door. Some one -stepped in the rubbish on the other side. They had been conscious, -during their stay in the room, that many people had passed outside; -once or twice, perhaps, a passer-by might have paused to gaze at the -ruin; but Ruth had heard no one enter the house. Byrne had heard no -one; for his grasp on Ruth’s arm tightened with a start of surprise -as he realized that the someone who now suddenly moved on the other -side of the door must have come there moments before.</p> - -<p>Byrne stepped back, drawing Ruth with him, and thrusting her a -little behind him. The person on the other side of the door was a -watchman, perhaps, or the owner of this house or a neighbor -investigating to what use these ruined rooms were now being put. -Byrne, thinking thus, spoke loudly in labored French, “I am an -American officer, with a companion, who has looked in here.”</p> - -<p>“Very well,” came in French and in a man’s voice from the other side -of the door. Byrne advanced to the door and opened it, therefore, -and was going through when a bludgeon beat down upon him. Byrne -reeled back, raising his left arm to shield off another blow; he -tried to strike back with his left arm and grapple his assailant; -but with his right, he still held to Ruth as though she would seize -this chance to escape; and yet, at the same time, Ruth felt that he -was protecting her with his body before hers.</p> - -<p>“Let me go!” she jerked to be free. “I’ll—help you!”</p> - -<p>He did not mean to let her go when she struggled free; he was still -trying to hold to her and also fight the man who was beating at him. -But her getting free, let him close with his assailant and grapple -with him. They spun about and went down, rolling over and over in -the débris. Ruth grabbed up a bit of iron pipe from among the -wreckage on the floor; and she bent over trying to strike at the man -with the bludgeon.</p> - -<p>“Help!” she called out. “<i>Secours!</i>”</p> - -<p>She knew now that the man who had waited outside was no mere -defender of the house; the treachery and the violence of his attack -could not be explained by concern for safety of that ruin. Ruth -could not think who the man might be or what was his object except -that he was fighting to kill, as he struck and fought with Byrne on -the floor. And Byrne, knowing it, was fighting to kill him, too.</p> - -<p>“<i>Secours!</i>” Ruth screamed for help again and with her bit of iron, -she struck—whom, she did not know. But they rolled away and pounded -each other only a few moments more before one overcame the other. -One leaped up while the other lay on the floor; the one who had -leaped up, crouched down and bludgeoned the other again; so that -Ruth knew that Byrne was the one who lay still. She screamed out -again for help while she flung herself at the man who was bending -over. But he turned about and caught her arms and held her firmly. -He bent his head to hers and whispered to her while he held her.</p> - -<p>“<i>Weg!</i>” The whisper warned her. It was German, “Away!” And the rest -that he said was in German. “I have him for you struck dead! -Careful, now! Away to Switzerland!”</p> - -<p>He dropped Ruth and fled; she went after him, breathless, trying to -cry out; but her cries were weak and unheard. He ran through the -rear of the house into a narrow alley down which he disappeared; she -went to the end of the alley, crying out. But the man was gone. She -stopped running at last and ceased to call out. She stood, swaying -so that she caught to a railing before a house to steady herself. -The words of the whisper ran on her lips. “I have him for you struck -dead!”</p> - -<p>They gave her explanation of the attack which, like the words of De -Trevenac to her, permitted only one possible meaning. The man who -had waited in the ruined house must have been one of the German -agents in Paris whom Ruth had returned to meet. Evidently, while -Byrne had been inquiring for her, the Germans too had been vigilant; -they had awaited her return either to get her report of what she had -seen in Picardy or to assign her to another task or—she could not -know why they awaited her; but certainly they had. One of them had -learned that afternoon that she had returned; he was seeking her, -perhaps, when Byrne found her. Perhaps he had known the peril to her -from Byrne; perhaps he merely had learned, from whatever he had -overheard of their talk in that ruined room, that Byrne accused her -of being a German spy; and so he had taken his chance to strike, for -her, Byrne dead.</p> - -<p>The horror of this realization sickened her; the German murderer -“for her” had made good his escape; and it would be useless to -report him now. She would be able to offer no description of him; -and to report that a large man, who was a German spy, had been about -that part of Paris this evening would be idle. But she must return -at once to Byrne who might not be dead. So she steadied herself and -hastened down the street seeking the ruined house.</p> - -<p>It was a part of Paris quite unfamiliar to her; and, as she had not -observed where she and Byrne had wandered, she passed a square or -two without better placing herself; and then, inquiring of a -passer-by, where was a ruined house, she obtained directions which -seemed to be correct; but arriving at the ruin, she found it was not -the one which Byrne and she had entered. Consequently it was many -minutes before she found the ruined house which gave her no doubt of -its identity. For people were gathered about it; and Ruth, -approaching these, learned that a monstrous attack had been made -upon an American infantry officer who, when first found, was -believed to have been killed; but the surgeon who had arrived and -had removed him, said this was not so. Robbery, some said, had been -the motive of the crime; for the officer had much money in his -pocket; but the murderer had not time to remove it. Others, who -claimed to have heard a girl’s voice, believed there might have been -more personal reasons; why had a man and a girl been in those rooms -that night?</p> - -<p>Ruth breathed her thankfulness that Byrne was not dead; and she -withdrew. Since Byrne had been taken away, she could do nothing for -him; and she would simply destroy herself by giving herself up to -the authorities. If Byrne lived and regained consciousness, -undoubtedly he would inform against her.</p> - -<p>But though she would not give herself up, certainly she would not -try to escape if Byrne accused her; she would return to her room and -go about her work while she awaited consequences.</p> - -<p>None followed her that night. She admitted to Milicent, when -questioned, that she had met Lieutenant Byrne upon the street and -they had walked together; Ruth said also that she had seen her -brother. Milicent evidently ascribed her agitation to a quarrel with -Byrne.</p> - -<p>Ruth lay awake most of that night. The morning paper which Milicent -and she read contained no mention, amid the tremendous news from the -front, of the attack upon an American officer in a ruined house; and -no consequences threatened Ruth that morning. She planned for a -while to try to trace Byrne and learn whether he had regained -consciousness; then she abandoned that purpose. She was satisfied, -from one of those instincts which baffle question, that Byrne lived; -and it would be only a question of time before he must accuse her.</p> - -<p>Yet she might have time enough to leave Paris and France—to get away -into Switzerland and into Germany. For the fact that a German had -for her attempted to strike her accuser dead was final proof that -the Germans had not connected her with the betrayal of De Trevenac; -they believed that she had been in Picardy all this time on account -of orders given her by De Trevenac.</p> - -<p>It was possible, of course, that the German who had struck for her -and whom she had pursued, would now himself suspect her. Yet her -flight after him might have seemed to him only her ruse to escape. -What he had last said to her, she must receive as her orders from -the Germans in Paris. “Away to Switzerland!”</p> - -<p>That concurred with the sentence of instruction given upon that page -which she had received with her passport that cold January morning -in Chicago.... “You will report in person, via Switzerland; apply -for passport to Lucerne.”</p> - -<p>At this moment when, for the cause of her country and its allies, -she had determined that she must make the attempt to go on to -Germany, the Germans were ready to have her. And that was easy to -understand; she had spent weeks going about freely behind the newly -formed English and French lines which bagged back about the immense -salient which the Germans had thrust toward Amiens; she was -supposed, as a German, to have ready report about the strength of -those lines as seen from the rear, of the strength of the support, -the morale of soldiers and civilians and the thousand other details -which the enemy desired to know.</p> - -<p>So Ruth went early that morning to the United States Consul General -with her passport which long ago had been substituted for that -ruined passport of Cynthia Gail’s; and she offered it for <i>visé</i>, -asking permission to leave Paris and France for a visit to the -neutral country of Switzerland, and, more particularly, to Lucerne. -She stated that the object of her journey was rest and recuperation; -she knew that, not infrequently in the recent months, American girls -who had been working near the war zones had been permitted vacations -in Switzerland; but she found that times were different now. She -encountered no expressed suspicion and no discourtesy; she simply -was informed that in the present crisis it was impossible to act -immediately upon such requests. Her application would be filed and -passed upon in due time; and a clerk questioned Ruth concerning the -war service which she had rendered which was supposed to have so -exhausted her that she desired rest in Switzerland.</p> - -<p>Ruth, hot with shame, perforce related what she had been through in -the retreat. She was quite aware when she went away and returned to -her work that her application for permission to go to Switzerland -would be the most damning evidence against her, when Byrne should -bring his accusation; and now, having made application, she could do -nothing but wait where she was. However, she heard nothing from -Byrne or from the authorities upon that day nor upon the succeeding -days of the week during which she worked, as she had when she first -came to Paris, in the offices of the relief society; upon almost -every afternoon she visited Charles Gail who was slowly sinking.</p> - -<p>After three days and then after a wait of three more, she revisited -the consulate and inquired about her <i>permission</i> for Switzerland; -but she got no satisfaction either time. But when at last the week -wore out and she met no interference with her ordinary comings and -goings, she was beginning to doubt her beliefs that George Byrne -lived; he must have died, she thought, and without having been able -to communicate his knowledge of her to anyone. Then one night she -was returning to the Rue des Saints Pères a little later than usual; -the mild, April afternoon had dimmed to twilight and, as she passed -the point where George Byrne had encountered her, fears possessed -her again; they lessened only to increase once more, as they now had -formed a habit of doing, when she approached the <i>pension</i>.</p> - -<p>“Letters for me, Fanchette?” she said to the daughter of her -landlady who was at the door when Ruth came in.</p> - -<p>“No letters, Mademoiselle; but Monsieur le Lieutenant!”</p> - -<p>Ruth stopped stark. Many Messieurs les Lieutenants and men of other -ranks called at the <i>pension</i> for Milicent or for Ruth, just for an -evening’s entertainment; but such did not appear at this hour.</p> - -<p>“He is in the salon, Mademoiselle.”</p> - -<p>Ruth went in. If it was George Byrne, at least then he was alive and -now strong again. The lamp in the little salon had been lit; and a -tall, uniformed figure arose from beside it.</p> - -<p>“Hello, Cynthia,” a familiar voice greeted. Gerry Hull’s voice!</p> - -<p>Ruth retreated a little and held to the door to support her in her -relaxation of relief. A hundred times during this terrible week, -Ruth had wanted to send for him.</p> - -<p>“I’m so glad to see you, Gerry.”</p> - -<p>“That’s good.” His tall, lithe self was beside her; his strong, -steady fingers grasped her arm and gently supported her when she let -go the door. He closed the door and led her to a chair where the -light of the lamp would fall full upon her. “Sit down there,” he -commanded kindly; and, when she obeyed, he seated himself opposite -pulling his chair closer the better to observe her but at the same -time bringing himself under the light.</p> - -<p>He had changed a great deal since last she saw him, Ruth thought. -No; she corrected herself, not so much since she had parted from him -after the retreat from Picardy; but he had altered greatly since -last he sat opposite her in this little salon at that time they -talked together about De Trevenac. The boy he had been when she -first saw him on the streets of Chicago; the boy he had been when he -had spoken at Mrs. Corliss’, had been maturing with marvelous -swiftness in these last weeks into a man. His eyes showed it—his -fine, impulsive, determined eyes, no less resolute and not less -impatient, really, but somehow a little more tolerant and -understanding than they had been. His lips showed it—thinner a -trifle and a trifle more drawn and straight though they seemed to -smile quite as easily. His whole bearing betrayed, not so much an -abandonment of creeds he had lived by, as a doubt of their total -sufficiency and the unsettledness which comes to one beginning to -grasp something new.</p> - -<p>“You’ve changed a good deal,” Ruth offered audibly.</p> - -<p>“I was thinking that about you,” Gerry said.</p> - -<p>“I guess—I guess we’ve changed some—together.”</p> - -<p>“I guess so.”</p> - -<p>She sat without response. Someone neared the door and Ruth roused -and, forgetting Gerry for an instant, she listened in covert alarm -in a manner which had become so habitual to her these last days that -she was not aware of it until he noticed it. The step passed the -door; and Ruth settled back.</p> - -<p>“Well, Cynthia,” Gerry asked her directly then, “what have you been -up to?”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“I was going to come to Paris to see you next week,” Gerry said. -“But something particular came up yesterday to make me manage this -today. I shouldn’t tell you, I suppose; in fact I know I shouldn’t. -The intelligence people have been poking about inquiring about you.”</p> - -<p>Ruth felt herself growing pale but she asked steadily enough,</p> - -<p>“Where?”</p> - -<p>“Where I was for one place.”</p> - -<p>“They asked you about me?”</p> - -<p>He nodded. “They asked Agnes Ertyle, too.”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I came here to find out. What’re you up to now?”</p> - -<p>He knew nothing, Ruth was sure, about George Byrne. Whatever -knowledge was in the hands of those who questioned him, he knew -nothing more than the fact of the inquiry.</p> - -<p>“It’s because I’ve applied for permission to go to Switzerland, I -suppose,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>“To go where?” he questioned.</p> - -<p>She repeated it.</p> - -<p>He bent closer quickly.</p> - -<p>“Why in the world are you going there?”</p> - -<p>“To rest up.”</p> - -<p>“You? That’s what you told the Embassy people, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Well, did they believe it?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know.”</p> - -<p>“I hope you didn’t expect me to. Look at me, Cynthia Gail. Why are -you traveling to Switzerland; you have to tell me the truth of what -you intend to do!”</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chXV' title='Gerry’s Problem'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>Chapter XV</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>GERRY’S PROBLEM</span> -</h2> - -<p>Ruth had told that truth, perforce, to George Byrne with the result -that he had condemned her; and, when meeting this condemnation, she -had said that Gerry must know that she was loyal. But did she know -that now?</p> - -<p>Questions crowded upon her which, she knew, must come to him. She -had betrayed De Trevenac; but it was a known principle of the -German spy organization that, at certain times and under certain -circumstances, one agent would betray another. The Germans punished -some of their spies in this way; in other cases, when a man was to -be discarded who had ceased to be useful, another spy had been -appointed to betray him for the advantage that the betrayal would -bring to the informer.</p> - -<p>Immediately after that betrayal, Ruth had gone to the precise -districts concerning which the Germans had desired information -preceding and during their attack and where results proved that -spies must have been numerous and unsuspected. Gerry had commented -upon this to Ruth during their retreat from Mirevaux; and when she -replied, he had realized again that she was not in France doing -“just relief work.” He had asked what else she was doing; she had -evaded answer. Would he believe her answer now or only that part of -it which George Byrne had believed?</p> - -<p>She arose and went to the door and saw that it was firmly closed.</p> - -<p>“Do you remember, Gerry,” she asked when she returned “that first -time we talked together in Mrs. Corliss’ conservatory, that I said I -woke up that morning trying to imagine myself knowing you—without -the slightest hope that I ever could?”</p> - -<p>“I remember you said something like that, Cynthia.”</p> - -<p>“Did you ever wonder how that might be? I mean that I should have -been invited to Mrs. Corliss’ and that same morning not imagine that -I could meet you?”</p> - -<p>“I suppose I thought Mrs. Corliss hadn’t called you till late,” -Gerry said.</p> - -<p>“She never called me, myself, at all. A girl—a strange girl, whom I -had never seen—a girl named Cynthia Gail had been asked. But she had -died before that day; so I came in her place.”</p> - -<p>Gerry drew a little nearer intently. “Because your names were the -same; you were related to her?”</p> - -<p>“No; I wasn’t related to her at all; and our names were entirely -different.”</p> - -<p>“But you——”</p> - -<p>“Took her name, yes, I did.”</p> - -<p>“And her passport?” He was thinking now, Ruth knew, of her ruined -passport and how he had advised her about having a new picture put -on it and how it had been, not by her own credentials but by his -requesting Agnes Ertyle to vouch for her, that she had been accepted -in France.</p> - -<p>“Yes; I took her passport and her identity—everything she had and -was, Gerry. I became on noon of that day Cynthia Gail. That -forenoon, I was Ruth Alden working for a real estate firm named -Hilton Brothers in Chicago for twenty-five dollars a week. I wanted -to tell you that—oh I wanted so much to tell you all about myself -that afternoon when you asked how I happened to be at Mrs. Corliss’ -and could think and say such different things from the other people -there.”</p> - -<p>“Why didn’t you?”</p> - -<p>She confused him, at first, as she had George Byrne; and she made -Gerry suspicious, too, but with an impersonal challenge and distrust -quite distinct from what Byrne’s had been. The real Cynthia Gail, of -course, had meant nothing to Gerry; he had known her only as Ruth -had come to him. What he was concerned for was the cause for which -and in which he had lived for four years—the cause which was -protected and secured by passports and credentials and authentic -identities and which was threatened by those who forged passports -and appeared in the allied lines under names other than their own.</p> - -<p>“I dared trust no one then—you almost last of all.”</p> - -<p>“With what?”</p> - -<p>“The great plan which I dreamed I might carry out alone—a plan of -going into Germany, Gerry, as a spy for America!”</p> - -<p>“Ah! So that’s the idea in Switzerland!”</p> - -<p>“Yes. The chance came to me that morning within a few minutes after -I spoke to you in the motor car on the street. You remember that?”</p> - -<p>“Of course.”</p> - -<p>“I was almost crazy to get into the war; and I couldn’t find any -way; then....”</p> - -<p>She told him, much as she had told Byrne, about the German who had -played the beggar and who had stopped her; of the disclosures in her -room; of her going to the hotel and finding Hubert waiting; and -then, after she had gone to Mrs. Corliss’ and met Gerry, how the -German woman had ordered her to take the <i>Ribot</i>.</p> - -<p>“The rest about me, I guess you know now, Gerry.”</p> - -<p>He made no answer as he had made no challenge except a question or -two to bring out some point more clearly. For a while, as she made -her confession, he had remained seated opposite her and gazing at -her with increasing confusion and distress; then, unable to remain -quiet, he had leaped to his feet.</p> - -<p>“Go on,” he had bid when she halted. “I’m listening.” And she knew -that he was not only listening but feeling too as he paced to and -fro before her on the other side of the lamp staring down at the -floor for long seconds, glancing at her, then staring away again.</p> - -<p>“Hush!” he had warned her once when someone passed the door; she had -waited and he had stood listening for the step to die away.</p> - -<p>“All right now,” he had told her.</p> - -<p>That was all that he had said; but his tone had told of fear of -anyone else hearing what she was confessing to him; and then there -beat back upon him realization that the chief threat to her must be -from himself.</p> - -<p>“I knew you were up to something, Ruth,” he murmured under his -breath. “Ruth,” he repeated her name, “Ruth Alden! That fits you -better somehow; and what you’ve been doing fits you better, too. -But—” he realized suddenly that this was acknowledging belief in -her—belief beyond his right to have faith in this girl who once on -the boat had tried to save his life and who, upon the battle field, -had saved him and at frightful risk to herself. But he was not -thinking chiefly of that; he was thinking of their intimacies from -the first and particularly of that day when, after she had saved him -from the wreck of his machine, they had driven away from the battle -together.</p> - -<p>“Only two things have happened to me since I went on board the -<i>Ribot</i> which you don’t know all about,” she was adding, “and which -had any connection with the secret I was keeping from you. One was -my meeting with De Trevenac. He stopped me on the street, supposing -I was a German agent. He gave me the orders which I told you he gave -to someone else.”</p> - -<p>“I was supposing,” Gerry replied, “that the entire truth about De -Trevenac was something like that.”</p> - -<p>“You know the entire truth about him now,” Ruth said. “What I told -you before I specifically said was not the entire truth.”</p> - -<p>Gerry winced a little as he turned toward her. “Don’t think I’m -holding that against you—if you’re Ruth Alden, as you say. Only if -you’re German——”</p> - -<p>“German!” Ruth refused the word with a gasp. “Gerry, you can’t -believe that.”</p> - -<p>“What was the other episode?” he asked quickly; and now she told him -about George Byrne; of her attempt to continue to deceive him; of -his mistaking her for his love; then his discovery of the truth and -their talk in the ruined house; of Byrne’s accusation and arrest of -her; of the irruption of the German and his attack; his repetition -of the order to her to go to Switzerland; and of her waiting since.</p> - -<p>“I told him when he accused me and I could not make him believe, -that you would know about me, Gerry!” she cried. “I thought -everything would be all right if only I could get you! And oh—oh -I’ve wanted you to come ever since!”</p> - -<p>She did not mean to say that, he saw; it was not possible that this -cry was planned and practiced for effect. It burst so unbidden, so -unguarded from her breast; and seized upon him like her hand—her -small, soft, strong little hand—closing upon his heart. It told to -him a thousand times better than all the words she had just said, of -her loneliness and fears and dreads fought out all by herself in her -wild, solitary, desperate adventure. And Gerry, gazing down at her, -did not ask himself again whether he believed. Instead he saw her -once more as first he had seen her at Mrs. Corliss’, and his heart -compressed as never it had before as he thought of her, a little -office girl making twenty-five dollars a week, coming to that big, -rich house not knowing who or what she would meet there and standing -up so singly and alone for her country and her faith; he saw her -again as she was on the <i>Ribot</i>, surrounded by new terrors and with -perils to her increasing day by day and playing her part so well; -and now passions and sensations which he had fought and had tried to -put off, overwhelmed him again. He felt her, wet and small with all -her clothing clinging to her as he had taken her from a sailor’s -arms and she, looking up at him, had tried so bravely and defiantly -to deny what her cries had just confessed to all the ship—that she -was his; she had gone into the sea for him. He saw and heard and -felt her hands upon him again as he lay helpless under the wreck of -his airplane and she worked beside him, coolly and well, though -machine-gun bullets were striking all about her; and she had freed -him. The sensation of their ride together returned while he had been -almost helpless in the seat of the truck watching her drive and -listening while she talked to him of another man whom she had -liked—the English officer, who had been killed, “1583.”</p> - -<p>As Gerry had envied that other man his comradeship with this girl, -now jealousy rose for the man who, for the wanton moments of his -tragic mistake, had possessed himself of her. She had not wished it; -she had submitted to his arms, to his kisses only perforce. She had -said, indeed, that she had not quite succeeded in submitting; and -Gerry found himself rejoicing in that. But another man had held her; -another had kissed her in full passion; and Gerry was dazed to find -now how he felt at that.</p> - -<p>He had known that she had been his almost from the first; but he had -not known that he had wanted her his until he had had to think of -her as having been someone else’s.</p> - -<p>He gazed down at her now, little, sweet, more beautiful than she had -ever seemed to him before, and alone in danger; and his arms -hungered to hold her; his face burned with blood running hot to -press warm lips against hers. He wanted to feel with her all that -any other man had felt; and she—she would not put him off. But -instead, he had to judge her. So he stood away, his hands behind his -back, one hand locked tight on the other wrist.</p> - -<p>“Well,” he said, “I’m here; what do you want me to do?”</p> - -<p>“You’ll do it for me, Gerry?”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“Help me to Switzerland.”</p> - -<p>“Still as Cynthia Gail, of course.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Then you turn into—whom?”</p> - -<p>“The German girl whom they will take into Germany.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose so. But who is she? Where does she come from? What is her -name?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know.”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“She came from Chicago, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>“You suppose; and you don’t know even her name and intend to try to -be her!”</p> - -<p>“It’s possible, Gerry; oh it’s possible, truly. You see I don’t -believe the Germans here in Paris, or those who’ll meet me in -Switzerland, know who I’m supposed to be.”</p> - -<p>“What do you think they’ll know?”</p> - -<p>“That the girl who’s here going under the name of Cynthia Gail, and -doing the work I’m doing, is really one of themselves and that -she’ll appear in Lucerne. Those are the essentials; and so far as -I’ve been able to observe the German-spy system—and you see I’ve -been a part of it for a while——”</p> - -<p>“Yes; I see.”</p> - -<p>“—it seems pretty well reduced to communicating just essentials. Of -course I’ve prepared a German-American name and identity for myself. -If they really know anything in Germany about the girl whom their -Chicago people sent here, they’ll have me; but if they don’t, I’ll -get on. That’s the part I’ve really been preparing myself for all -these months, Gerry; just being Cynthia Gail here was—nothing.”</p> - -<p>He felt himself jerk and recoil at that. Had she been playing a part -with him all this time as well as to others; had this being his been -only a rôle which she had acted?</p> - -<p>“I see,” he said to her curtly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, not nothing to me, Gerry, in the things I’ve had to do when I -wrote Cynthia’s mother and father and when I had to write George -Byrne and when I’ve been seeing her brother. I meant that deceiving -Hubert and his aunt and her friends here and the rest and you, -Gerry, was—” she did not finish.</p> - -<p>“Quite simple,” he completed for her with relief. So the deception -with him had not been hard because, in what would have been hard, -she had not deceived him. “Where’s Hubert?” Gerry questioned now.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. I don’t think he’s in Paris, now.”</p> - -<p>“You haven’t heard from him recently?”</p> - -<p>“He sent me several postals when I was at Mirevaux; I’ve not heard -from him since.”</p> - -<p>“Then he knows nothing whatever about this?”</p> - -<p>“He doesn’t know that George Byrne found me, Gerry; but he knows I’m -not Cynthia Gail.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! So you told him some time ago, did you?” Jealousy of Hubert now -leaped in him; Hubert had known of her what he could not know.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t tell him; or I didn’t mean to, Gerry,” Ruth explained. “He -knew about me—that is, about Cynthia Gail, of course—and he asked me -questions on the train coming here from Bordeaux which I had to -answer and answered wrongly.”</p> - -<p>“Oh; he caught you, then; he told you so!”</p> - -<p>“He caught me, Gerry; but he didn’t tell me so,” Ruth corrected. “I -didn’t know at all that I’d given him answers which he knew were -false until I found out some family facts from Charles Gail here the -other day. Hubert must have known I wasn’t Cynthia, but——”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“I guess he trusted to me, myself, that I could not be against our -cause.”</p> - -<p>She had not attempted to make a rebuke of that reply; but Gerry felt -it.</p> - -<p>“Hub hadn’t been put in my position, Ruth,” he defended himself. “He -hadn’t been made responsible for you—in France.”</p> - -<p>“I think that he felt himself wholly responsible for me, Gerry,” -Ruth replied, coloring warmly as she thought of the complete loyalty -of her strange friend. “Only he felt willing to accept the -responsibility.”</p> - -<p>“But he did not know what you were doing!” Gerry protested. “He did -not know that you were accused as a spy!”</p> - -<p>“No,” Ruth said; then, “So I am accused, Gerry?”</p> - -<p>“Byrne accused you, you said. Inquiries certainly have been made; -that puts another problem up to a man.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said. But he knew, as he gazed down at her, that she was -thinking that Hubert would have trusted her just the same.</p> - -<p>Was she manipulating him now, Gerry wondered? Was it possible that -this girl had been playing with and utilizing him in what had just -passed? Had George Byrne come and had all happened which she had -told him or was it conceivable that she had contrived the whole -story, or distorted it for effect upon him to anticipate accusation -against her from other quarters? Had Hubert really found out about -her; or was that too invented for the sake of flicking him into -blind espousal of her plans? Flashes of such sort fought with every -natural reaction to remembrance of his own close comradeship with -her. Impossible; impossible! his impulses iterated to him. But his -four years in France had taught him that the impossible in -relations, in understandings, in faiths and associations between man -and man and man and woman had ceased to exist. In this realization, -at least, his situation was truly distinct from Hubert’s. He -believed in her; at least, he wished to tear his hands apart from -their clench together behind him; he longed to extend them to her; -he burned at thought of lifting her again and feeling her weight in -his arms; and when he looked at her lips, it fired flame to his; -yet——</p> - -<p>“I don’t flatter myself that I can control the report which is being -compiled about you, Ruth Alden,” he said. “What I have said, and may -say, will only be a part of the data which will determine what’s to -be done with you. For you realize, now, that one thing or the -other’s to be done.”</p> - -<p>“I realize that, Gerry,” she said.</p> - -<p>“You know that in one case they must arrest you and try you—by -court-martial.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“I may—I don’t know! God help you and me, Ruth Alden, I don’t know -yet—I may have to give part of the evidence which will accuse you! -But though I do—and after I’ve done it—you must know that I’ll be -fighting for you, believing in spite of facts which I may be bound -to witness, that you somehow are all right. I’ll be trying to save -you. I suppose that sounds mad to you; but it’s true.”</p> - -<p>“It doesn’t sound mad to me.”</p> - -<p>“In the other case,” he went on, “in case I can decide honestly with -myself that you cannot possibly be doing anything one jot to -threaten our cause, and in case Byrne has died or does not speak, -then probably you will be passed on to Switzerland and you’ll try to -go into Germany.”</p> - -<p>Ruth waited without reply.</p> - -<p>“Do you see what you’re putting up to me? You’re making me either -accuse you to the French and cause you to be imprisoned and tried; -or, if I believe and let them believe that you’re American, I must -know that I’m sending you on into Germany to face a German firing -squad. For they’ll shoot you down, as they did Edith Cavell, when -they catch you; and they’ll catch you! You haven’t a chance and you -know it! So give it up—give it up, I say! Go tomorrow and cancel -your request; go home or stay here and work only as you have been -doing.”</p> - -<p>“And when I’m taking my train of refugees out of the villages in the -next zone where they strike, know again that I might have done some -bit to prevent it and—I was afraid? What can you think of me? Do you -think I could have done all that I’ve told you I have just for the -sake of working here in Paris? Do you think I could see death come -to so many and care how it comes to me?”</p> - -<p>“It’s not just death,” Gerry said, quivering as he gazed down at -her. “If I could be sure they’d just kill you, it might be easier to -leave your affairs to you. Who owns the right to refuse another his -way to die? But you’re a girl. At first when they may think you one -of themselves, you may be safe; but then they’ll discover you. A -man—or what passes in Germany for a man—probably will find you out. -He——”</p> - -<p>Gerry could say no more; for a moment his resistance to himself -broke and his hands seized her. “They shan’t!” he denied to her -fiercely. “They shan’t!”</p> - -<p>Gently she raised a hand and, as she had upon that occasion before, -she loosened the grasp of his fingers.</p> - -<p>“You’re not to think about what could happen to me; you must think -only of what I may do, Gerry,” she said.</p> - -<p>He released her, as he had before; but this time he caught the -fingers which opposed his; he bent quickly and, carrying her hand to -his lips, he kissed it.</p> - -<p>He drew back from her then; and she closed her other hand over the -fingers which he had kissed and, so holding, she stood gazing up at -him under lashes wet with tears.</p> - -<p>“I’m going now,” he said abruptly. “What I’ll have to do about you—I -don’t know. I suppose you realize that since you’ve applied for -<i>permission</i> for Switzerland, and since I’ve been questioned about -you, probably you are under special observation. So whatever you -think I may be doing about you, you’d better not attempt to move for -the present.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t expect to make any move at all—unless I receive my -<i>permission</i> for Switzerland,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>“All right.” He turned away and looked for his cap in the corner -where he had left it; then he came back and briefly said good night.</p> - -<p>Out upon the street with the darkness enveloping him, misgivings -tormented him again. The little, dim Rue des Saints Pères was quiet -and almost deserted; all Paris seemed hushed. The spring warmth of -the evening which, in another year, would have brought stir and -gladness which would have thronged the avenues with folk upon idle, -joyous errands tonight brought only oppression. Paris, Gerry knew, -denied danger; yet Paris and, with Paris, all of France; and, with -France, all Europe; and, with Europe, America and the rest of the -world lay menaced that April night as they had not been since the -September of the Marne.</p> - -<p>For in the great bulge in the battle line which the enemy had thrust -between Amiens and Paris, the Germans had established firmly their -positions and there they rested, while to the north beyond Arras -they were striking their second tremendous blow and had overrun -Armentières and were rushing on toward Calais and the Channel.</p> - -<p>Gerry strode on with consciousness of these events almost physically -pressing upon him. In their presence, what was he with his -prejudices and passions, what was that girl who had seared his lips -when he pressed them against her fingers so that still for many -moments afterwards his lips burned and tingled? If she was a German -spy who had been deluding and playing with him, to permit her to -proceed now might work further catastrophe incalculable; whereas -were she what he believed—yes; he believed—she could do no good but -must merely destroy herself if allowed to go on. Had he any choice -but to take the only action which could prevent her?</p> - -<p>Ruth had waited alone in the little parlor after he had gone, with -her left hand clasped protectingly over the fingers which he had -kissed; protectingly she kept that clasp while, standing at the -window, she had watched his figure disappear in the darkness of the -street of the Holy Fathers. Her fingers were hot like his lips; and -while that heat still was strong, she brought her hand to her cheek -and pressed it there.</p> - -<p>That night nothing else occurred; nor upon the next day and night, -nor during the following week did Ruth hear from Gerry as to what he -had done about her; and she encountered nothing to indicate his -decision until, calling again about her request for travel in -Switzerland, suddenly she found permission granted, whereupon she -took the first train for the east of France and the next morning -passed the border into Switzerland. Accordingly it was in the shadow -of Mount Pilatus that she read in a Bern newspaper that three days -previously the American ace, Gerry Hull, had been shot down while -flying over the German lines; but that his companions in the flight, -who had returned, reported that, though falling in enemy territory, -he seemed to have succeeded in making some sort of a landing; so it -was possible that he was not killed but might be a prisoner in the -hands of the Germans.</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chXVI' title='Into Germany'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER XVI</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>INTO GERMANY</span> -</h2> - -<p>The little Republic of Switzerland, always one of the most -interesting spots in the world, became during this war a most -amazing and anomalous country. Completely surrounded by four great -powers at war—and itself peopled by citizens each speaking the -tongue of one or another of its neighbors and each allied by blood -with one or with two or with three, or, perhaps, with all—the Swiss -Confederation suffered a complex of passions, sympathies, and -prejudices quite beyond possible parallel elsewhere. And, as -everyone knows, the Swiss Republic during the four years of the war, -successfully persisted in peace.</p> - -<p>Peace! What a strange condition in which to live, Ruth wondered with -herself as she encountered the astonishments on every hand when she -had crossed the border. She had been in a country at war for not -quite three months—unless you nominated America from April, 1917, to -January, 1918, a nation at war. Ruth did not. As she thought of her -life before she took ship for France, the date of America’s -declaration of a state of war with the Imperial German government -was not fixed in the fiber of her feelings as were many other days -before the date of that declaration—the September 6 of the Marne, -the May 7 of the <i>Lusitania</i>, the glorious weeks of the defense of -Verdun. The war declaration of April 6, 1917, seemed now to Ruth but -a sort of official notification of the intentions of the American -people which since then had only continued to develop. That home -country which she had left in the last days of January was not -nearly so different from its peace-time self as war-time France had -proved distinct from war-time America.</p> - -<p>Certainly Ruth’s life had run on almost unchanged by the American -declaration of war, save for the strengthening of her futile, -stifled passions. But that day in January, which had embarked her -for France, had ushered her into a realm which demanded dealings in -realities which swiftly had made all before seem illusory and -phantasmagorical.</p> - -<p>The feeling of dreamland incredulity that she, Ruth Alden, could -actually be experiencing those gloriously exciting days upon the -<i>Ribot</i> and following her arrival in France had been supplanted by -sensations which made it seem that these last weeks had been the -only real ones in her life. When she thought of her old self—of that -strange, shadowy, almost substanceless girl who used to work in a -Madison Street real estate office for Sam Hilton—it was her life in -Chicago which had become incredible. She did not, therefore, forget -her own home; on the contrary, her work which had been largely the -gathering together of scattered family groups and the attempt to -reestablish homes, had made her dwell with particular poignancy upon -memories of the little house in Onarga where her mother and her -sisters dwelt. Regularly Ruth had addressed a letter to her mother -and dropped it in a post-box; she had dared tell nothing of herself -or of her work or give any address by which anyone could trace her. -She simply endeavored to send to her mother assurance that she was -well and in France. Obviously she could not receive reply from her -mother; indeed, Ruth could have no knowledge that any of her letters -ever reached home. She experienced the dreads which every loving -person feels when no news can come; such experience was only part of -the common lot there in France; but it helped to remove her life at -home further into the past.</p> - -<p>Switzerland, strangely and without warning, had undone much that -France and the battle zone had worked within Ruth; the inevitable -relaxing of the strain of work in a country at war had returned Ruth -to earlier emotions. What was she, Ruth Alden, doing here alone in -the Alps? She was standing, as one in a dream, upon the quay before -the splendid hotels of Lucerne and gazing over the blue, wonderful, -mountain-mirroring waters of the Lac des Quatre Cantons. Off to the -southwest, grand and rugged against the azure sky, rose the -snow-capped peaks of Pilatus; to the east, glistening and more -smiling under the spring sun, lay the Rigi. The beauty and wonder of -it was beyond anything which Ruth Alden could have known. Who was -she that she was there?</p> - -<p>Then a boy came by with newspapers and she bought a German newspaper -and one printed in French at Bern. It was this one which informed -her, when she glanced down its columns, that Gerry Hull had been -shot down, and, strangely—and mercifully, perhaps—this knowledge -came not to the girl who, during the past months had been his -friend, his close comrade during days most recent; it seemed to -come, somehow, only to a girl who lay awake early in the morning in -a shabby room at an Ontario Street boarding house, a girl who -day-dreamed about impossible happenings such as knowing Gerry Hull, -but who soon must stir to go down to breakfast at the disorderly -table in the ill-lit room below and then catch a crowded car for Sam -Hilton’s office.</p> - -<p>Such was the work of peace and Pilatus and the Rigi and the images -upon the lake. War—war which had become the only reality, the sole -basis of being—miraculously had vanished. She passed through throngs -speaking German and by other groups conversing in French; these -stood side by side, neither one prisoner to the other; they had no -apparent hostility or animosity. These people, in part at least, -were German and French; but there beyond the border—Ruth gazed in -the direction of Alsace—men of such sorts sprang at one another with -bayonets; and Gerry Hull had been shot down.</p> - -<p>Ruth searched the German newspaper for further word of him; she -looked up a news-stand and bought several papers, both French and -German. In some she discovered the same brief announcement of the -fate of the American pilot; but no further information. But it was -certain that he was dead or a prisoner—wounded, probably, or at -least injured by the crash of his airplane in the “some sort of a -landing” which he had succeeded in making. It had been “some sort of -a landing” which he had made that time he was shot down when she had -gone to him and helped him free. Tales of German treatment of their -prisoners—tales which she could not doubt, having been told her by -men who themselves had suffered—recurred to her and brought her out -of this pleasant, peaceful Lethe from realities in which Lucerne, -for a few hours, had let her live. Tension returned; and, with the -tension, grief but not tears; instead, that determination imbued her -which she had witnessed often enough in others, when loss of their -own was made known to them. Gerry Hull, she thus knew, was her own; -and as she had seen men and women in France giving themselves for -the general cause, and for one particular, personal vengeance, too, -so Ruth thought of her errand into Germany no longer as solely to -gather information for the army but to find and free Gerry Hull, if -he was a prisoner; and if he was killed, then to take some special, -personal vengeance for him.</p> - -<p>She had come to Lucerne—ostensibly—to rest and to recuperate; and -Mrs. Mayhew had given her letters to friends who were staying at one -of the large hotels. Ruth had registered at the same hotel and a -Mrs. Folwell, an American, had taken Ruth under her chaperonage. -Ruth’s name, upon the hotel register, of course stood as Cynthia -Gail; and as Miss Gail, she met other guests in the hotel, which was -one of those known as an “allied hotel” in the row of splendid -buildings upon the water front devoted to the great Swiss peace and -war <i>industrie des étrangers</i>. The majority of its guests, that is, -designated themselves as English or French, Italian or -American—whatever in fact they might be. The minority laid claim to -neutral status—Norwegian, Danish, Hollandish, Swedish, Spanish. But -everyone recognized that in this hotel, as in all the others, the -Germans and Austrians possessed representatives among the guests as -well as among the servants.</p> - -<p>“It is the best procedure,” Mrs. Folwell said half seriously to Ruth -upon her arrival, “to lay out all your correspondence upon your -table when you leave the room so that it may be examined, in your -absence, with the least possible disturbance. They will see it -anyway.”</p> - -<p>Ruth was quite willing. Indeed, she was desirous of advertising, as -quickly as possible, the presence of “Cynthia Gail.” She had taken -the trouble to learn a simple device, employing ordinary toilet -powder and pin perforations through sheets of paper, which would -disclose whether the pages of a letter had been disturbed. -Accordingly she prepared her letters, and, merely locking them in -her bureau drawer, she left them in her room. Returning some hours -later, and unlocking the drawer, she found all her letters -apparently undisturbed; but the powder and the perforation proved -competent to evidence that secret examination had been made.</p> - -<p>Of course examination might have been at the hands of allied agents; -for Ruth did not imagine that the Germans and Austrians alone -concerned themselves with war-time visitors to Switzerland; but she -felt sure that the Germans had made their search also.</p> - -<p>After breakfast the next morning Ruth met a man of twenty-eight or -thirty—tall, reddish-haired, and with small gray eyes by name -Christian Wessels, known as a Norwegian gentleman who had made -himself agreeable to the Americans at the hotel. He was an ardent -admirer of American policies and could repeat verbatim the statement -of American war aims given by President Wilson to Congress three -months before. He was a young man of culture, having graduated from -the Swedish University of Upsala and was now corresponding with the -University of Copenhagen. He proved to be a man of cosmopolitan -acquaintance who had visited London, New York, San Francisco. He -spoke English perfectly; and he nursed profound, personal antipathy -to Germany as his family fortunes had suffered enormously through -the torpedoing of Norwegian ships; moreover, he himself had been -traveling from England to Bergen when his ship was destroyed and he -had been exposed to winter weather in an open boat for five days -before being picked up. He was only now recuperating from the -effects of that exposure, meanwhile carrying on certain economic -studies to guide trade relations after the war.</p> - -<p>His method of recuperation, Ruth observed, was to eat as heavily and -as often as occasions permitted; he was a sleek, sensuous young man, -ease-loving and, by his own account, a connoisseur of the arts. He -talked informatively about painting, as about politics. Ruth did not -like him; but when she encountered him as she was wandering about -alone gazing at the quaint houses in the interior of the old town, -she could not be too rude to him when he offered himself as a guide.</p> - -<p>“You have seen the Kapellbrücke, Miss Gail?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; of course,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>“And the historical paintings? You understand them?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” Ruth asserted again.</p> - -<p>“To what do they refer?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” Ruth admitted, and accompanied him, in no wise -offended, back to the old bridge over the Reuss; then to the -Mühlenbrücke with its Dance of Death; next he took her away to the -Glacier Garden.</p> - -<p>While they had been in the town with many people close by, his -manner to Ruth had not been unusually offensive; but when they were -away alone, he became more familiar and he took to uncovert -appraisal of her face and figure.</p> - -<p>“You are younger than I had expected,” he commented to her, apropos -of nothing which had gone before but his too steady scrutiny of her -face and her figure.</p> - -<p>“I did not know that you expected anything in regard to me,” Ruth -said. “Mrs. Folwell did not know I was coming until I arrived.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! But your orders were given you—the thirtieth of last month, -were they not?”</p> - -<p>Ruth stiffened. The thirtieth of last month was the day upon which -she had arrived in Paris from Compiègne, the day upon which she had -visited Charles Gail and, upon her return to the Rue des Saints -Pères, had met George Byrne. Only one order had been given her that -day; and that order had been given by the German who struck down -Byrne. No one else had known about that order but herself and the -German; she had told Gerry and he might have told it to the French -authorities. But she could not associate this sleek, sensuously -unpleasant person, going by the name of Wessels, with anyone whom -Gerry could have informed. She readily could connect him with the -German who had for her attempted to strike Byrne dead; and she had -been awaiting—impatiently awaiting—the German agent here at Lucerne -who must accost her.</p> - -<p>“Yes; the thirtieth,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>“Then why did you not come sooner?”</p> - -<p>“I applied at once for permission,” Ruth defended herself. “It was -delayed.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! Then you had much difficulty?”</p> - -<p>“Delay,” Ruth repeated. “That was all; though I may have been -investigated.”</p> - -<p>“You used Hull again to help you, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I used Hull,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>Her heart was palpitating feverishly and the compression in her -throat almost choked her while she fought for outward calm. She was -a German girl, she must remember; she had come from her great peril; -she had passed it; this was relief and refuge with one of her own -before whom, at last, she could freely speak; for—though she dared -not yet fully act upon the conviction—she no longer doubted at all -that this Wessels was the enemy agent who was to control her -henceforth. How much did he know about her, or about the girl she -was supposed to be? He knew that she had been ordered here on the -thirtieth of last month; he knew that she had at times “used” Gerry -Hull.</p> - -<p>“We have him now, you know,” Wessels said, watching her with his -disagreeable, close scrutiny.</p> - -<p>“He’s captured?” Ruth said. She had remembered that she must have no -real concern for the fate of an enemy pilot whom she had “used.”</p> - -<p>“Dead or captured; anyway, we have him,” Wessels assured. He had -continued to speak to her in English, though no one was near them; -and if anyone did overhear, the German tongue certainly would arouse -no comment in Lucerne. “Mecklen seems to have only half-done your -other flame.”</p> - -<p>In his conversation at the hotel he had affected the use of slang to -display his complete familiarity with English, Ruth had noticed; and -she caught his meaning instantly. Her other flame was George Byrne, -of course; Mecklen, who had “only half-done” him, must be the German -of the ruined house.</p> - -<p>“Byrne did not die?” Ruth asked.</p> - -<p>“Who’s Byrne?” Wessels returned. “The American infantry lieutenant?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“No; he did not die. Mecklen shut his mouth; but any day now it may -open. When you did not come, I thought it had.”</p> - -<p>“His mouth opened?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; we had better walk, perhaps. There are many more places of -great interest. I shall show them to you.”</p> - -<p>He pointed Ruth ahead of him down a narrow way; and when she -proceeded obediently, he followed.</p> - -<p>She welcomed the few moments offered for consideration. So George -Byrne had not died! That was a weight from her heart; and Wessels -had only fragmentary facts about her, however he had received them. -He knew that she had had another “flame,” an American infantry -lieutenant; but Wessels had not known his name.</p> - -<p>“You were lucky to get here,” Wessels offered, coming up beside her -when the way widened. Their direction was farther out from the city -and they continued to be quite alone. “But it cooks your chance to -go back.”</p> - -<p>“To France, you mean?”</p> - -<p>“Where else?”</p> - -<p>She had thought of the possibility of being dispatched from -Switzerland not into Germany, but back to France. If someone was to -meet her at Lucerne who could take complete report upon the matters -which she had been supposed to observe, the logical action would be -to return her to work again behind the allied lines. Her original -instructions, received in Chicago, had only implied—they had not -directly stated—that she was to go on into Germany; but she had -clung to the belief that she would go on. And now the failure of -Mecklen to fully do his work with Byrne had settled that doubt for -Ruth; for with Byrne alive and likely at any day to “open his -mouth,” obviously the Germans would not order her into the hands of -the French.</p> - -<p>“We may use you in Russia or Greece; but not France for the present, -or even Italy,” Wessels said. “But first you can visit home, if you -like.”</p> - -<p>He meant the Fatherland, home of the girl whom he believed Ruth to -be; and Ruth knew that she had come to the crisis. If the -fragmentary facts which had been forwarded to this man comprised any -account of the girl whom the Germans in Chicago had meant to locate -and whom they had failed to find when they entrusted their mission -to Ruth, she was stopped now. If not....</p> - -<p>“I’d like to look in at the old home,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>“Where is it? What town?”</p> - -<p>“My grandfather lived near Losheim.”</p> - -<p>“Where is that?”</p> - -<p>“It is a tiny town beyond Saarlouis; near the Hoch Wald.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes; I know. What is your name?”</p> - -<p>“Luise Brun,” Ruth said. There was a German girl of that name who -had lived in Onarga; Ruth had gone to high school with her and had -known her well. During the early days of the war, Luise had told -Ruth about her relatives in Germany—her grandfather, who had lived -near Losheim until he died the winter before, and her two cousins, -both of whom had been killed fighting. Ruth did not resemble Luise -Brun in any way; and she did not imagine that she could go to -Losheim and pass for Luise; but when questioned about herself, she -had far more detailed knowledge of Luise’s connections to borrow for -her own use than she had had of Cynthia Gail’s.</p> - -<p>Wessels, however, appeared less interested in Ruth’s German -relatives than in herself. “You have been in America most of your -life?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“When I was a baby I was brought to Losheim and again when I was a -little girl,” Ruth said. “My father and mother never forgot the -Fatherland.”</p> - -<p>“Of course not,” Wessels accepted, impatient of this loyal -protestation and desirous to return to the more personal. “I was -saying you are much like an American girl. American girls, I must -admit, attract me.”</p> - -<p>He began speaking to her suddenly in German; and Ruth replied in -German as best she could, conscious that her accent was far from -perfect.</p> - -<p>It appeared to pass with him, however, as the sort of pronunciation -to be expected from a girl reared in America.</p> - -<p>“How old are you now, Luise?” he questioned familiarly.</p> - -<p>“Twenty-five.”</p> - -<p>“Yet <i>eines mädchen</i>, I warrant.”</p> - -<p>“I am not married, Herr Baron,” Ruth assured, employing the address -to one of title. Either he was a possessor of baronial rank and -pleased with the recognition of the fact, or the assignment of the -rank was gratifying and he did not correct her.</p> - -<p>“And in America you have no sweetheart of your own—other than your -‘flames?’”</p> - -<p>He spoke the slang word in English, referring to Byrne and to Gerry -Hull, with both of whom, as he believed, she had merely played.</p> - -<p>“No one, Herr Baron,” Ruth denied, but colored warmly. He took this -flush for confession that she was hiding an attachment; and he -laughed.</p> - -<p>“No matter, Luise; he is not here.”</p> - -<p>He was indulgently more familiar with her—a <i>von</i> something or -other, admitting pleasure with the daughter of a man of no rank who -had emigrated to America. Ruth brought up the business between them -to halt further acceleration of this familiarity.</p> - -<p>“I am to make my report to you, Herr Baron?”</p> - -<p>“Report? Ah, yes! No; of course not. Why should you make report here -now? It is simply trouble to record and transmit it. You are not -going back to France, I said, did I not?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Then the report will be tomorrow.”</p> - -<p>“Where, Herr Baron?”</p> - -<p>“Where I take you to—headquarters.”</p> - -<p>Ruth went weak and gasped in spite of herself. She had thought that -she was prepared to meet any fate; but now she knew that she had -built upon encountering her risks more gradually. To be taken to -“headquarters”—<i>das Hauptquartier</i>—tomorrow! And, though Gerry had -warned her, and she had said that she had recognized and accepted -every sort of danger, still she had not reckoned upon such a -companion as this man for her journey.</p> - -<p>“Ha, Luise! What is the matter?”</p> - -<p>“When do we start, Herr Baron?”</p> - -<p>“The sooner the better; surely you are ready?”</p> - -<p>“Surely; I was thinking—” she groped for excuse and could think of -nothing better than, “What way do we go?”</p> - -<p>“By Basel and Freiburg.”</p> - -<p>“What time, if you please, Herr Baron?”</p> - -<p>“At eight o’clock the train is.”</p> - -<p>“I would like to return now to the hotel, then.”</p> - -<p>He complied and, conversing on ordinary topics in English, they -reentered the town.</p> - -<p>She had no arrangements to make. Wessels was to see to all necessary -details. She could pack her traveling bags in a few minutes; and she -dared not write to anyone of the matters now upon her mind. She -desired to return to the hotel only to be alone; and, as soon as she -had parted from Wessels, she shut herself in her room.</p> - -<p>Long ago—a period passed in incalculable terms of time—she had -determined, locked alone in a room, to undertake proceeding into -Germany. Her purpose from the first, and her promise to the soul of -Cynthia Gail—the vindication which she had whispered to strengthen -herself when she was writing to Cynthia’s parents, and George Byrne, -and when she was receiving their letters, trading upon Cynthia’s -mother’s friends—was that she was to go into Germany.</p> - -<p>It must be at tremendous risk to herself; but she always had -recognized that; she had said to Gerry that she accepted certain -death—and worse than death—if first she might have her chance to do -something. Well, she might have her chance. At any rate, there was -nothing to be done but go ahead without futilely calculating who -Wessels actually was, what he truly believed about her, what he -meant to do. Here was her chance to enter Germany.</p> - -<p>An hour later she descended to dinner with Mrs. Folwell, and noticed -Wessels dining at his usual table in another part of the room. Ruth -informed Mrs. Folwell after dinner that she was starting that -evening for Basel; it was then almost train time and, after having -her luggage brought down, she went alone to the train.</p> - -<p>Wessels also was at the train, but he halted only a moment beside -her to give her an envelope with tickets and other necessary papers. -Ruth entered a compartment shared by two women—German women or -German-speaking Swiss, both of middle age, both suspicious of the -stranger and both uneasily absorbed with their own affairs. No one -else entered; the guard locked the door and the train proceeded -swiftly, and with much screeching of its whistle, through darkened -valleys, through pitch-black, roaring tunnels, out upon slopes, down -into valleys again.</p> - -<p>Late at night the two women slept. Ruth tried to recline in a -corner; and repeatedly endeavored to relax in sleep; but each time, -just before the dissolution of slumber, she started up stiff and -strained. Dawn had not come when the women awoke and the train -pulled into Basel. It was still dark when, after the halt at the -city, all doors again were opened and everyone ordered to leave the -cars. This was the German border.</p> - -<p>Ruth stepped out with the others and rendered up her luggage. She -was aligning herself with the women awaiting the ordeal of the -German examination, when Wessels appeared with a porter, who was -bearing Ruth’s bags. He passed without halting or speaking to her; -but a moment later a German official touched her arm and, pointing -her to go on, he escorted her past the doors before which the others -were in line for examination. He brought her to the train which was -standing on the German side and showed her to an empty compartment, -where her luggage lay in the racks. Ruth sat in the compartment -watching the people—men and women—as they issued from the depot of -examination; they went to different cars of the waiting train; but -when anyone attempted to enter the compartment where Ruth sat, a -guard forbade until Wessels reappeared, got in, and told the guard -to lock the door.</p> - -<p>Immediately the train started.</p> - -<p>“Welcome to the Fatherland, <i>Liebchen</i>!” said Wessels, drawing close -beside Ruth as the car gathered speed and rushed deeper into -Germany.</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chXVII' title='The Road to Lauengratz'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER XVII</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>THE ROAD TO LAUENGRATZ</span> -</h2> - -<p>Ruth moved from him and to the end of the seat. He laughed and again -edged up to her.</p> - -<p>“Where are we bound?” Ruth asked.</p> - -<p>“That’s up to you.”</p> - -<p>“How?”</p> - -<p>“I send you one place, if you cut up; a more pleasant one, if you do -not.”</p> - -<p>“What are the two places?”</p> - -<p>“The first I may leave to your heated imagination; the other—it is -quite pretty, I assure you. Particularly in the spring, with all -nature budding to increase. I own it—in the Schwarzwald, near -Biberach. You know the Schwarzwald?”</p> - -<p>“No,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>“Indeed; it is not so far from Losheim.”</p> - -<p>He put a taunt into his tone—confident, mocking raillery; and Ruth -knew that he had discovered her; she recognized that from the very -first, probably, he had known about her and that she had never -deceived him. Whether he had received information prior to her -appearance that she was not to be trusted, or whether she had -betrayed herself to him, she could not know; and now it scarcely -mattered. The fact was that he was aware that she was not of the -Germans and that he had brought her into Germany with power to -punish her as might appeal to him.</p> - -<p>“Then you do not know Lauengratz?” he went on.</p> - -<p>“No,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>“You do not call me Herr Baron now, <i>Liebchen</i>,” he reproached, -patting her face.</p> - -<p>Ruth made no reply but the futile movement of slipping to the -cushions opposite, where he permitted her to sit alone, contenting -himself by leaning back and smirking at her.</p> - -<p>He continued to speak to her in English, except for his native -<i>liebchens</i>, to show off his perfect familiarity with her language. -For he entirely abandoned all pretense of believing her anything but -American. Near Lauengratz, he informed her, was his favorite estate, -where, when he wished, even the war would not unpleasantly intrude; -he trusted that she would have the good sense to wish to visit -Lauengratz.</p> - -<p>Dawn was brightening, and Wessels—Ruth did not yet know his true -name—switched off the lights in the compartment, lifted the curtains -and motioned to the right and ahead, where, along the length of -Baden, lay the wooded hills of his Schwarzwald—the Black Forest. The -gray light, sweeping over the sky, showed Ruth the wooded slopes -reaching down toward the Rhine, which had formed the Swiss-German -boundary at Basel, but which now flowed almost due north between the -German grand duchy of Baden and the German Imperial Territory of -Alsace, within the western edge of which now ran the French and -American battle line.</p> - -<p>Four railroads, Ruth knew, reached from Basel into Germany—one west -of the Rhine to Mühlhausen; one almost due east and up the river -valley to the Rhinefall; one northeast to Todtnau; the other north -and parallel with the Rhine to Freiburg and Karlsruhe. The train -evidently was traveling this last road with the Rhine valley dimly -in sight to the west. There had come to Ruth the wholly irrational -sensation that Germany, when at last seen, must appear a land -distinct from all others; but nothing in this quiet countryside, -which was disclosing itself to greater and greater distance under -the brightening dawn, was particularly alarming or peculiar. She -viewed a fair and beautiful land of forest, and farm, and tiny, neat -villages very like the Swiss, and with not so many soldiers in -evidence about them as Ruth had noticed upon the Swiss side of the -frontier.</p> - -<p>Perhaps it was the appearance of this fair, quiet countryside which -spared Ruth from complete dismay; perhaps, deep within her, she had -always realized that her venture must prove inevitably fatal, and -this realization now controlled her reactions as well as her -conscious thought; perhaps she was one of those whom despair -amazingly arms with coolness and resource.</p> - -<p>“I will go with you to Lauengratz,” Ruth replied.</p> - -<p>“That’s good!” He patted the seat beside him. “Come back here now.”</p> - -<p>Ruth recognized that she must obey or he would seize her; so she -returned to the other seat and suffered his arm about her.</p> - -<p>“You do not recall me, <i>Liebchen</i>?” he asked indulgently.</p> - -<p>He referred, obviously, to some encounter previous to their very -recent meetings in Lucerne. Ruth could recollect no such occasion, -but she feared to admit it lest she offend his vanity. And, indeed, -now that he suggested that they had met before, his features became -to her, not familiar, but it seemed that she had seen him before.</p> - -<p>“Didn’t I see you in Paris, Herr Baron?” she ventured boldly.</p> - -<p>“In Paris precisely,” he confirmed, boastfully.</p> - -<p>“I would have placed you, if I had thought about the possibility of -your having been in Paris,” Ruth explained.</p> - -<p>“Ah! Why should I not have been there? A Norwegian gentleman, -shipwrecked from a vessel torpedoed by the horrid Huns!” He laughed, -self-flatteringly, and squeezed Ruth tighter. “A kiss, <i>Liebchen</i>! I -swear, if you are a loyal girl, surely you’ll say I deserve a kiss!”</p> - -<p>He bent his head to take his reward; and Ruth, unable fully to -oppose him, contented herself with turning her cheek, avoiding touch -of his lips upon hers. It satisfied him, or he was in such excellent -humor with himself that he let it content him for the moment.</p> - -<p>The loathing which his embrace stirred within her and the helpless -fury for repulse of him called clear images from Ruth’s -subconsciousness.</p> - -<p>“About two weeks ago—” she began.</p> - -<p>“A week ago Thursday, <i>Liebchen</i>.”</p> - -<p>“You brought a child for clothing to the relief rooms where I was -working. I waited upon you.”</p> - -<p>“And following your excellent explanation of your wonderful work, -<i>Liebchen</i>, I gave you—” He halted to permit her to recount his -generosity.</p> - -<p>“Two hundred francs, Herr Baron.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! You do recollect. That deserves a kiss from me!” he cried, as -though she had given the other. Accordingly, he rewarded her as -before. “You remember the next time?”</p> - -<p>“It was not there,” Ruth said vaguely. “It was upon the street.”</p> - -<p>“Quite so. The Boulevard Madeleine. There was a widow—a refugee—who -halted you——”</p> - -<p>Ruth remembered and took up the account. “She stopped me to try to -sell a bracelet, a family treasure——”</p> - -<p>“Which you admired, I saw, <i>Liebchen</i>.”</p> - -<p>“It was beautiful, but quite beyond my means to buy—at any fair -price for the poor woman,” Ruth explained.</p> - -<p>“So I purchased it!” He went into a pocket and produced the -bracelet. “Put it on, <i>Liebchen</i>!” he bid, himself slipping it over -her hand. “Now another kiss for that!”</p> - -<p>He took it.</p> - -<p>“I did not know you were honoring me with your attentions all that -time, Herr Baron.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no trouble, <i>Liebchen</i>; a pleasure, I assure you. Besides, with -more than your prettiness you piqued curiosity. You see, I received -word in Paris when I am there before—a few months ago—that we can -confidently employ one who will appear as Cynthia Gail. The word -came from Chicago, I may tell you, quite roundabout and with some -difficulty. Before we learn more about you—well, Mecklen took it -upon himself to do you a little turn, it seems.”</p> - -<p>Ruth merely nodded, waiting.</p> - -<p>“Then a correction arrives from America, laying bare an -extraordinary circumstance, <i>Liebchen</i>. Our people in Chicago sent -us in January one Mathilde Igel, and now they have ascertained -beyond any possible doubt that two days before they dispatched -Mathilde to Paris, she has been interned in America. Who, then, have -our Chicago people sent to us and advised us to employ—who is this -Cynthia Gail? You would not need to be pretty to pique curiosity -now, would you, <i>Liebchen</i>?”</p> - -<p>He petted her with mocking protectiveness as he spoke; and Ruth, -recoiling, at least had gained from him explanation of much about -which she had been uncertain. The Germans in Chicago, plainly, had -made such a mistake as she had supposed and had been long in -discovering it; longer, perhaps, in communicating knowledge of it to -Paris. But it had arrived in time to destroy her. Herr Baron -gratuitously continued his explanation.</p> - -<p>“So I took it upon me, myself, to have a squint at our Cynthia and I -got my good look at you, <i>Liebchen</i>! What a pretty girl—how do you -Americans say it? A dazzler; indeed, a dazzler! What a needless pity -to add you to the total of destruction, already too great—you so -young and innocent and maidenly? I have never been in favor of -women’s intrusion in war; no, it is man’s business. For women, the -solacing of those who fight—whether with sword or by their wits -behind the enemy’s lines! Not so, <i>Liebchen</i>?”</p> - -<p>It was broad daylight—a sunny, mild morning amid wooded hills and -vales with clear, rushing streams, with the Rhine Valley lost now to -the west as the railroad swept more closely to the Black Forest. The -train was slowing and, as it came to halt before a little -countryside station, Wessels took his arm from about Ruth and -refrained, for a few moments, from petting her; he went so far, -indeed, as to sit a little away from her so that anyone glancing -into the compartment would see merely a man and a girl traveling -together. Mad impulses had overwhelmed Ruth when she felt the train -to be slowing—impulses that she must be able to appeal to whoever -might be at the station to free her from this man; but sight of -those upon the platform instantly had cooled her. They were -soldiers—oxlike, servile soldiery who leaped forward when, from a -compartment ahead, a German officer signaled them for attention; or -they were peasant women and old men, only more unobtrusive and -submissive than the soldiers. Appeal to them against one of their -“gentlemen” and one who, too, undoubtedly was an officer! The idea -was lunacy; her sole chance was to do nothing to offend this man -while he flattered himself and boasted indulgently.</p> - -<p>The train proceeded.</p> - -<p>He put his arm about Ruth again. “So I took upon myself the -responsibility of saving you, <i>Liebchen</i>! You have yet done us no -harm, I say; you mean us harm, of course. But you have not yet had -the opportunity.”</p> - -<p>Ruth caught breath. He did not know, then, of her betrayal of De -Trevenac? Or was he merely playing with her in this as in the rest?</p> - -<p>“What is it, <i>Liebchen</i>?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Nothing.”</p> - -<p>“So I say to myself, I can let her go on and blunder across our -border in some way and, of course, surely be shot; or I may take a -little trouble about her myself and spare her. You do not make -yourself overthankful, <i>Liebchen</i>.”</p> - -<p>“I am trying to, Herr Baron.”</p> - -<p>“A kiss, darling, to your better success!” He gave it. “Now I will -have you compose yourself. A few more kilometers and the next stop -is ours. Lauengratz is not upon the railroad; it is not so modern, -nor is my family so new as that.”</p> - -<p>He gazed out complacently while the train ran the few kilometers -swiftly. It drew into a tiny woodland station of the sort which Ruth -had frequently observed—a depot with switch tracks serving no -visible community, but with a traveled highway reaching back from it -toward a town hidden within the hills. No one waited here but the -station master and a man in the uniform of a military driver, who -stood near a large touring car. He was gazing at the train windows -and, seeing Wessels, he saluted. He came forward as the train -stopped and, when the compartment door was opened, he took Wessels’ -traveling bag.</p> - -<p>“Those in the racks, too,” Wessels directed curtly in German. Those -were Ruth’s; and she shrank back into the corner of the seat as the -man obediently took them down. Wessels stepped out upon the platform -and turned to Ruth.</p> - -<p>No one else was leaving the train at that station; indeed, the door -of no other compartment opened. There was no one to whom Ruth might -appeal, even if appeal were possible. Wessels stood patiently in the -doorway; behind him rose quiet, beautiful woodland.</p> - -<p>“Come,” he commanded Ruth, stretching a hand toward her.</p> - -<p>She arose, neglecting his hand, and stepped from the train. The -guard closed the door behind her; immediately the train departed. -The station master—an old and shrunken man—approached, abjectedly, -to inquire whether Hauptmann von Forstner had desires. Herr -Hauptmann disclaimed any which he required the station master to -satisfy; and the old man retired swiftly to the kiosk at the farther -end of the platform.</p> - -<p>The driver, who had finished securing the luggage behind his car, -opened the door of the tonneau and waited there at attention.</p> - -<p>“Welcome to Lauengratz, <i>gnädiges Fräulein</i>.” Von Forstner dropped -the insulting <i>liebchens</i> to employ his term of respectful and -gallant address; and before the soldier-servant he refrained from -accents of too evident irony. Ruth’s position must be perfectly -plain to the man, she thought; but it pleased the master to pretend -that he concealed it.</p> - -<p>She made no reply; she merely stood a moment longer gazing about her -to get her bearings. She had no conscious plan except that she -recognized that she was to be taken into some sort of duress from -which she must attempt to escape; and if she succeeded she would -require memory of landmarks and directions. Von Forstner’s eyes -narrowed as he watched her and divined what was passing through her -mind; but he pretended that he did not.</p> - -<p>“Have I not said it was beautiful here?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“It is very beautiful,” Ruth replied and, as he motioned to her, she -preceded him into the car and sat upon the rear seat with him.</p> - -<p>The car, which was fairly new and in good condition, drove off -rapidly. It evidenced to Ruth either that reports of the scarcity of -motor cars in Germany had been exaggerated or that Captain von -Forstner was a person of sufficient importance to possess a most -excellent vehicle from the vanishing supply. It followed a narrow -but excellent road through forest for half a mile; it ran out beside -cleared land, farm, and meadows, where a few cattle were grazing. A -dozen men were working in a field—big, slow-moving laborers.</p> - -<p>Von Forstner observed that Ruth gazed at them. “Russians,” he -explained to her. “Some of my prisoners.”</p> - -<p>He spoke as if he had taken them personally. “I have had, at various -times, also French and English and Canadians; and I expect some -Americans soon. I have asked for some; but they have not appeared -against us frequently enough yet for us to have a great many.”</p> - -<p>“Still we have already not a few of you,” Ruth returned quietly. Her -situation scarcely could become worse, no matter what she now said; -and, as it turned out, von Forstner was amused at this defiance.</p> - -<p>“If they are much like the Canadians they will not be much good -anyway,” he said.</p> - -<p>“For fighting or farm work, you mean?”</p> - -<p>Von Forstner hesitated just a trifle before he returned, “They can -stand nothing; they die too easily.”</p> - -<p>The car was past the fields where the Russians toiled and was -skirting woodlands again; when fields opened once more quite -different figures appeared—figures of women and of a familiarity -which sent the blood choking in Ruth’s throat. They were French -women and girls, or perhaps Belgians of the sort whom she had seen -tilling free, French farms; but these were captives—slaves. And -seeing them, Ruth understood with a flaming leap of realization what -von Forstner had meant about the Russians. They were captives also, -and slaves; but they had never known freedom.</p> - -<p>But to see these women slaves!</p> - -<p>Von Forstner himself betrayed especial interest in them. He spoke -sharply to the driver, who halted the car and signaled for the -nearest of the slaves to approach.</p> - -<p>“Where are you from?” he questioned them in French. They named -various places in the invaded lands; most of them had been but -recently deported and had arrived during von Forstner’s absence. Two -of the group, which numbered eight, were very young—girls of sixteen -or seventeen, Ruth thought. They gazed up at Ruth with wide, -agonized eyes and then gazed down upon the ground. Ruth glanced to -von Forstner and caught him estimating them—their faces, their -figures, as he had estimated her own. She caught him glancing from -them to herself now, comparing them; and her loathing, and -detestation of him and of all that he was, and which he represented -suddenly became dynamic.</p> - -<p>He did not see that; but one of the French girls, who had glanced up -at her again, did see; and the girl looked quickly down at once as -though fearing to betray it. But Ruth saw her thin hands clenching -at her sides and crumpling the rags of her skirt; and from this Ruth -was first aware that her own hands had clenched and through her -pulled a new tension.</p> - -<p>“Go on,” von Forstner ordered his driver.</p> - -<p>The car sped along the turning road into woods; the road followed a -stream which rushed down a tiny valley thirty or forty feet below. -At times the turns gave glimpses far ahead and in one of these -glimpses Ruth saw a large house which must be the <i>Landgut</i>—or the -manor—of this German country-place.</p> - -<p>“See! We are almost home, <i>Liebchen</i>!” Von Forstner pointed it out -to her when it was clearer and nearer at the next turn. He had his -hand upon Ruth again; and the confident lust of his fingers set hot -blood humming dizzily, madly in Ruth’s brain. The driver, as though -responding to the impatience of his master, sent the car spinning in -and out upon the turns of the road beside the brook. In two or three -minutes more—not longer—the car would reach the house. Now the car -was rushing out upon a reach of road abruptly above the stream and -with a turn ahead sharper, perhaps, than most. In spite of the speed -the driver easily could make the turn if unimpeded; but if -interfered with at all....</p> - -<p>The plan barely was in Ruth’s brain before she acted upon it. -Accordingly, there was no chance for von Forstner to prevent it; nor -for the driver to oppose her. She sprang from her seat, seized the -driver’s right arm and shoulder, as he should have been turning the -steering-wheel sharply; and, for the necessary fraction of a second, -she kept the car straight ahead and off the road over the turn.</p> - -<p>When a motor car is going over, crouch down; do not try to leap out. -So a racing driver, who had been driving military cars in France, -had drilled into Ruth when he was advising her how to run the roads -back of the battle lines. Thus as the car went over she sprang back -and knelt on the floor between the seats.</p> - -<p>The driver fought for an instant, foolishly, to bring the car back -onto the road; then he flung himself forward and down in front of -his seat. Von Forstner, who had grabbed at Ruth too late, had been -held standing up when the car turned over. He tried to get down. -Ruth could feel him—she could not look up—as he tumbled half upon -her, half beside her. She heard him scream—a frightful, hoarse man’s -scream of mad rage as he saw he was caught. Then the car was all the -way over; it crushed, scraped, slid, swung, turned over; was on its -wheels for a flash; at least air and light were above again; it -pounded, smashed, and slid through brush, against small trees; and -was over once more. It ground and skewed in soft soil, horribly; -cold water splashed below it. It settled, sucking, and stopped.</p> - -<p>The sound of water washing against metal; for a moment the hiss of -the water on the hot engine; then only the gurgle and rush of the -little brook.</p> - -<p>Ruth lay upon her back in the stream with the floor of the car above -her; below her was von Forstner’s form, and about him were the -snapped ribs of the top with the fabric like a black shroud.</p> - -<p>At first he was alive and his face was not under water; for he -shouted frantic oaths, threats, appeals for help. Wildly he cursed -Ruth; his back was broken, he said. He seemed to struggle at first, -not so much to free himself as to grasp and choke her. Then the back -of the car dammed the water and it rose above his face. He coughed -and thrashed to lift himself; he begged Ruth to help him; and, -turning as far about as she could, she tried to lift his head with -her hands, but she could not. The water covered him; and, after a -few moments, he was quite still.</p> - -<p>The dam at the back of the car, which had caused the pool to rise -that high, failed to hold the water much higher; it ran out of the -sides of the car before it covered Ruth. It soaked her through; and -the weight of the machine held her quite helpless. But she had air -and could breathe.</p> - -<p>From the forward seat came no sound and no movement. The driver -either had been flung out in one of the tumbles of the car or, like -his master, he had been killed under it. Ruth could only wonder -which.</p> - -<p>But someone was coming down the embankment from the road now; more -than one person; several. Ruth could hear their movements through -the underbrush. Now they talked together—timidly, it seemed, and at -a little distance. Now they approached, still timidly and talking.</p> - -<p>These were men’s voices, but strange in intonations and in language. -It was not German, or French, or any tongue with which Ruth was at -all familiar. It must be Russian. The timid men were Russians—some -of the slaves!</p> - -<p>One of them touched the car and, kneeling, peered under it.</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chXVIII' title='The Message in Cipher'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER XVIII</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>THE MESSAGE IN CIPHER</span> -</h2> - -<p>Ruth could see dull eyes in a big, stupid face. The man said -something with the inflection of a question. She could not make out -the words, but obviously he was asking if anyone was alive under the -car. So Ruth answered. The face disappeared; and she heard -consultation. Soon several men tramped in the water and thrust -timbers under the side of the car and tilted it. Large, rough hands -reached under and caught Ruth and pulled her out.</p> - -<p>She sank limp when the hands released her, gently enough, and laid -her upon the sloping bank above the stream. The man who had rescued -her had four companions, all of them Russians. They engaged -themselves immediately in dragging out Captain von Forstner and then -exploring under the car. But they found no one else. Ruth discovered -the driver lying a rod or so beyond her and farther up the slope. -Plainly he had been thrown out and the car had crushed him. The -Russians had seen him before they had come to the car, and when Ruth -made signs to them to go to the man they shook their heads, -repeating a sentence which meant—she had no doubt—that the man was -dead. They repeated the same words about von Forstner.</p> - -<p>Ruth struggled up, dizzily, to find herself battered and with -muscles bruised and strained; but she had escaped without broken -bones or disabling injury. A German soldier, armed with a rifle, -joined the group of Russians about Ruth. Evidently he was a guard -who had been at some distance when the car went from the road.</p> - -<p>“You are much injured, <i>gnädiges Fräulein</i>?” the soldier asked her -solicitously and respectfully.</p> - -<p>“Only a little,” Ruth replied, collecting strength again and -regaining clearness of thought.</p> - -<p>When the Russians first had come to her aid she had thought of them -as helping her, as an American against the Germans; but now she was -cool enough to realize how absurd that idea was. These peasant -slaves were not moved by any political emotions and, if they had -been, they were incapable of recognizing her as an American and the -possessor of any particular sympathy for them. She was to them a -lady—a companion of a master who undoubtedly had mistreated them; -but when they had found that master helpless they had been below any -instincts of revenge upon him. They had considered his misfortune a -lucky chance given them to perform some service which could win them -favor, and now that the master was dead they sought that favor from -the mistress.</p> - -<p>And much the same considerations governed the German guard. It was -plain from his manner of address to her that he could not have -witnessed the accident to the car, or at least he could not have -observed that she had caused it. She was to him a friend of -Hauptmann von Forstner, who had passed riding beside Herr -Hauptmann—a lady, of the class of persons with whom Herr Hauptmann -associated and whose authority at all times and in all matters the -private soldier was accustomed to accept.</p> - -<p>The authority which Ruth thus possessed was extremely local, of -course; its realms might not run beyond the little leafy valley of -the brook, and it surely was temporary; but locally and for the -instant it was hers.</p> - -<p>“You desire, <i>gnädiges Fräulein</i>,” the soldier asked her, “that I -stay here and send one of them,” he indicated the Russians, “with -word to the manor or that I go?”</p> - -<p>“You go,” Ruth directed, struggling up to her feet. “I am quite -strong again and you can do nothing for Herr Hauptmann.”</p> - -<p>“No, <i>gnädiges Fräulein</i>, I can do nothing for Herr Hauptmann,” the -soldier agreed. Of himself he was doubtful whether he should yet -leave his <i>gnädiges Fräulein</i>, but he had been commanded, so he -went.</p> - -<p>The Russians had withdrawn a little; and after the German soldier -was gone Ruth stood alone, gazing down at von Forstner’s body. She -had killed von Forstner and his servant. She had killed them in -self-defense and by an act which might have destroyed her as well as -them, yet horror shrank her as she saw them lying dead—horror which -first had seized her at the idea of individually dealing in death -that day long ago when she stood with Gerry in the parlor of the -<i>pension</i> upon the Rue des Saints Pères, and when he had told her -that the French had taken Louis de Trevenac upon her information, -and were to execute him.</p> - -<p>If she had killed these men solely to save herself, she must cast -herself down beside them. But she had not! That sudden, mad deed -which she had just performed—and in the consequences of which she -was just beginning to be involved—sprang not from self-defense. It -was not sense of escape from personal violation which at this moment -chiefly swayed her; it was a sensation of requital, in petty part, -for the savageries of that sweep through Belgium of which she had -heard four years ago; requital for the <i>Lusitania</i>; for Poland and -Serbia; for the bombing of Paris and for that long-range gun whose -shells she had seen bursting; for Grand’mère Bergues’ daughter and -for the other refugees upon the Mirevaux road; for the French girls -and women in slavery only a mile from here; for....</p> - -<p>She raised her hands to her hair, which was wet, as she was wet all -over; she arranged her hair and her clothing as decently as she -could. A motor car was coming upon the road from the manor. It -stopped directly above, and the soldier and a man in civilian -clothes got out; the driver of the car remained in his seat and -maneuvered to turn the car about in the narrow road.</p> - -<p>The man in civilian clothes, who came down the slope toward the -stream, was forty or forty-five years old, Ruth thought. He was a -large man, florid-faced and mustached, with the bearing not of -servant but of a subordinate—an overseer of some sort, Ruth guessed, -or perhaps a resident manager of the estate.</p> - -<p>“Good morning, <i>gnädiges Fräulein</i>,” he saluted Ruth, breathless -from his haste and agitation. “I am Dittman,” he made himself known. -“What a terrible accident has occurred! Herr Hauptmann is dead, they -say; and Josef, too!” He gave barely a glance toward the body of the -chauffeur, but knelt at once beside von Forstner’s.</p> - -<p>“They are both dead,” Ruth said quietly. It was plain that von -Forstner had been Dittman’s master and that Dittman, for the moment -at least, accepted Ruth as a friend of von Forstner’s, as the -soldier had.</p> - -<p>“What shall I order done?” Dittman appealed to Ruth, rising.</p> - -<p>“Take Hauptmann von Forstner’s body to the house, of course,” Ruth -directed. “Who is at the house?” she inquired.</p> - -<p>“Besides the servants, this morning only Herr Adler.”</p> - -<p>“Who is Herr Adler?”</p> - -<p>“Why, he is Hauptmann von Forstner’s secretary.”</p> - -<p>“Then why did he not himself come at once?”</p> - -<p>“Word arrived that Herr Hauptmann was dead,” Dittman explained. -“Herr Adler did not think that you would require him here, <i>gnädiges -Fräulein</i>. Since Herr Hauptmann was dead it was more necessary than -ever for Herr Adler to remain at the house. Oberst-Lieutenant von -Fallenbosch communicates by telephone at this time in the morning; -immediately he must be informed.”</p> - -<p>“Of course,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>She was aware that Dittman was observing her more and more -curiously, not so much because of her questions and of her ignorance -of the household affairs of Captain von Forstner, she thought, as -because of her accent. Dittman apparently was not surprised that the -lady companion of his master did not know about Adler; and even the -fact that she spoke German with an undisguisable foreign accent did -not stir suspicion, but only curiosity. Ruth apparently had taken -the right tone with this puffing underling by offering no -explanations whatever about herself and by demanding them of others.</p> - -<p>“You are wet, <i>gnädiges Fräulein</i>,” he reminded her solicitously. “I -brought the motor car for you. If you will proceed I shall see to -all things for Herr Hauptmann.”</p> - -<p>“Hauptmann von Forstner carried upon himself certain papers for -which I now must be responsible,” Ruth returned to Dittman.</p> - -<p>“Ah, yes; of course, <i>gnädiges Fräulein</i>.”</p> - -<p>“You may obtain them for me.”</p> - -<p>Dittman knelt again, obediently, and carefully and methodically went -through von Forstner’s pockets. A few minutes before, when Ruth had -been alone but for the Russian slaves, she had realized that she -ought to obtain the papers in those pockets, but her revulsion at -making the search had halted her. Now that proved altogether -fortunate. Her fate here hung upon little things; and one of those -trifles which supported her, undoubtedly, was that she had waited -for this Dittman before allowing disturbance of any of von -Forstner’s effects.</p> - -<p>Dittman gathered together everything from the pockets—money, keys, -penknife, cigarette case, revolver, and memorandum book, besides two -thick packets of folded papers; and he offered all to Ruth, who -accepted only the packets and the memorandum book. Dittman assisted -her to climb the slope to the waiting car.</p> - -<p>“My bags, Dittman,” Ruth said to her escort when she was seated. -They had been held fairly well away from the water by the position -of the wrecked car; and there was more than a chance that the -leather had kept dry some of the clothing within. Ruth did not know -what lay before her but she could meet it better in fresh garments. -Dittman ordered one of the Russians to bring up her bags and place -them in the car.</p> - -<p>As it sped away to the south Ruth sat back alone in the rear seat. -Evidently she had been expected at the manor house; from the border -or, perhaps, from Basel or from Lucerne Captain von Forstner had -warned his household that he was bringing her with him. Had he -described to his inferiors the relationship of his companion to him? -Almost surely he had not. If they had arrived together, in the -manner planned by von Forstner, his servants swiftly enough could -have arrived at their own conclusions; but now that von Forstner was -dead—accidentally, as all believed—matters lay so that his servants -might judge the nature of her association with their master by the -manner in which Ruth bore herself.</p> - -<p>Oberst-Lieutenant von Fallenbosch, who communicated by telephone at -this time in the morning, suggested perilous complications, but -perils were all about her now, in any case. The bold course upon -which she was embarked was—if you thought about it—safer, in -reality, than any other.</p> - -<p>So Ruth steadied herself as the car, clearing the woods, ran beside -open acres to a huge and old German manor house set baldly upon a -slope above the stream. A man was walking upon the terrace before -the door; he sighted the car and started quickly to meet it, but as -the car sped up he returned to the terrace and stood upon the lower -step at the edge of the drive. He was a short, broadly built but -nervous little man, upwards of thirty, spectacled, and with thick -hair cropped somewhat after the military fashion; but he was not in -uniform and his bearing was that of student or professional man, -rather than of the military.</p> - -<p>When the car stopped he did not wait for the driver or one of the -servants, who now had come out upon the terrace, but he himself -opened the door and stood back quickly, staring at Ruth anxiously -and rubbing together his fat red hands.</p> - -<p>“Herr Adler?” Ruth asked as she stood up.</p> - -<p>“Yes, <i>gnädiges Fräulein</i>. You have come from the captain?”</p> - -<p>Her drenched condition was witness to the fact, and Ruth observed -that, besides, his little eyes sought the packets of papers and the -memorandum book which she held.</p> - -<p>“I have come from America and more recently from France,” Ruth said, -stepping down. They were alone now as Adler walked with her across -the terrace. “I have come from Lucerne with Captain von Forstner.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, <i>gnädiges Fräulein</i>, I know; I know. And he is dead, they tell -me. It is true that he is dead?”</p> - -<p>“He is dead,” Ruth confirmed. And she saw that the fact of von -Forstner’s death bore far different consequences to Adler than to -Dittman. The secretary was charged now with responsibilities which -had been his master’s; it was these, more than the physical accident -of von Forstner’s death, which overwhelmed and dismayed him. “But I -have recovered his reports and personal memoranda,” Ruth assured.</p> - -<p>“Yes; yes. That is very fortunate.”</p> - -<p>“Which I shall go over with you as quickly as I can change to dry -clothes, Herr Adler,” she continued. She did not know whether the -secretary had been about to make demand for his master’s papers; if -he had, she had anticipated him. “Oberst-Lieutenant von Fallenbosch -has telephoned?” Ruth asked.</p> - -<p>“Ten minutes ago, <i>gnädiges Fräulein</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Of course you told him that Captain von Forstner is dead.”</p> - -<p>“Of course.”</p> - -<p>“Well, what is he to do?”</p> - -<p>“He is coming here at once.”</p> - -<p>“That’s good,” Ruth managed, steadily enough. “Where was he when he -telephoned.”</p> - -<p>“At Offenburg, <i>gnädiges Fräulein</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Then he will arrive in about an hour?”</p> - -<p>“At noon, he said. But first there is much,” Adler’s nervousness -increased, “much to be made ready for him.”</p> - -<p>“I will not delay,” Ruth promised.</p> - -<p>They had entered the hall—a large, dark hall with a wide, black -stairway rising at the side.</p> - -<p>“I shall send your bags instantly to your room, <i>gnädiges -Fräulein</i>,” Adler assured. He halted, giving her over to a maid -servant for guidance. “Show Fräulein Brun to her apartment,” Adler -ordered. “I shall send stimulant,” he added.</p> - -<p>So she was Fräulein Brun and she had been expected here! Captain von -Forstner had sent word that he was bringing her and had ordered her -apartment prepared; and his advices, even to Adler, had ended with -that.</p> - -<p>Ruth followed the maid into a bedroom and boudoir, where, a moment -later, her bags were brought. Examination proved that they had -served to keep her packed clothing dry; and, with the maid’s -assistance, Ruth took off her soaked garments. The maid took down -her hair and brushed it out to dry; another maid appeared with the -stimulant which Adler had promised and also with hot broth and -biscuit. Ruth took this gladly and felt stronger. She let herself -relax, half dressed, in a chair while the maid fanned and brushed -her hair. From the window she saw a car coming to the manor with von -Forstner’s body; a few moments later she heard the feet of bearers -pass her room door. They appeared to take him into apartments just -beyond—those which had been his own, undoubtedly. Ruth instructed -the maid to do her hair and she would finish dressing.</p> - -<p>Dismissing the maid, she remained alone in the room. She had kept -with her the papers which von Forstner had carried, and while she -had been under observation she had refrained from examining them. -Now she opened the packets and found that those papers which had -lain inside were almost dry; and swiftly spreading them before her -she saw that they appeared to be typewritten observations upon -economic matters of the character which a neutral Norwegian -gentleman might make. They must be, in fact—Ruth knew—cipher -memoranda of very different matters; they would probably not contain -any summaries, for von Forstner could carry all summaries in his -head. He would have committed to writing only details and items—some -of them petty, taken by themselves, but others of more importance. -They would have to do with conditions in France, but while meant for -German information their contents must carry quite as important -advices for the allies, for they would betray the particular -locations with which the Germans were concerning themselves and -thereby disclose the front of the next attack.</p> - -<p>Ruth sorted the pages over swiftly and, finding that their texts -fell under nine heads, she removed the twenty-eight pages which were -under five of these heads; the other twenty-three pages she restored -to the two packets. She thrust the removed pages under her corset; -and, carrying the others in their wet packets, she left the room. -Descending the wide, black stairs, she found Adler pacing the -hallway as he had paced the terrace.</p> - -<p>He led her into a large, high, dark paneled, mullion-windowed room -where old armor and battle maces stood upon the black walls above -modern office filing cases and with an ancient carved table topped -with glass and desk blotter; before this was an ordinary swivel -chair. Adler motioned Ruth to this as he put out his hand for the -packets.</p> - -<p>“The reports now, please, <i>gnädiges Fräulein</i>!” Adler asked. “A -transcription immediately must be ready for Oberst-Lieutenant von -Fallenbosch! He will not find it like talking with Hauptmann von -Forstner; but we must do what we can!”</p> - -<p>Ruth handed him the packets and she sat down in the swivel chair -while, on the other side of the glass table top, Adler spread out -the sheets. Their number appeared to satisfy him; at least he -questioned nothing, but, having the pages in order, he unlocked a -small, flat drawer and took out three paper stencils. The apertures -through the paper differed, Ruth saw, with each stencil. Adler laid -them in order over the first three sheets, and, bending, read to -himself the words which remained in sight under the stencils. Ruth -could not see what he read nor the brief transcript he made with -pencil upon a pad. He shifted the stencils to the next three sheets, -read the result again, made his transcript, and again shifted.</p> - -<p>Adler came to the end and gazed up at Ruth. The other women whom -Hauptmann von Forstner had invited to Lauengratz and who had used -those apartments above evidently had been of unquestionable loyalty, -for the secretary, when he gazed up at this guest of his dead -master, did not challenge her. He sought information to prepare -himself for the visit of Oberst-Lieutenant von Fallenbosch, not half -an hour away.</p> - -<p>“Besides these, <i>gnädiges Fräulein</i>,” he appealed anxiously, “did -Herr Hauptmann make no verbal mention of other matters?”</p> - -<p>Ruth shook her head. “Personal matters between him and myself,” she -said. “But he did not go into the reports of others with me at all. -In fact, he would not even receive my report; since I was coming -into Germany I could make it myself to Oberst-Lieutenant -Fallenbosch. That would be safer, he said.”</p> - -<p>This true recital threw Adler into gesturing despair. “Exactly; it -is precisely what he would do! It is safest; it is most discreet to -put nothing, or as little as possible, upon paper. That is always -his obsession! So discreet! When I say to him it is not always safer -he laughs or tells me to mind my own business! Discretion! It is -because he is so obsessed by it that he directs our secret service -for the district. ‘Have merely an ordered mind, a good memory, -Adler,’ he always says to me, ‘and nothing will be misplaced, -nothing will get astray, nothing will be obtained by others.’</p> - -<p>“‘Yes, Herr Hauptmann,’ I say, ‘but suppose something happen to that -ordered mind and that good memory! What then?’ Ah! He laughs at me -and pats me on the back so indulgently. But where is that ordered -mind; where now is that memory to which the most important things -may be committed? Well, he is away from the trouble,” the secretary -raged in his dismay. “He can hear nothing which Oberst-Lieutenant -von Fallenbosch may say of him. But I—I will get it.... Yet you can -make your report to him. At least, that much may be added. You have -come from where, Fräulein Brun? Which front?” he beseeched -hopefully.</p> - -<p>“From Picardy,” Ruth said. “I had the honor to be assigned to Roisel -and to attach myself, particularly, to the British Fifth Army.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! I salute you, <i>gnädiges Fräulein</i>, and your comrades for the -wonderful work you have done. But the importance of that is past, -Fräulein Brun! Since then where have you been?”</p> - -<p>“My duty, as I interpreted it, was to retreat with the British; so I -was swept back with them to Compiègne. Since then, as I explained to -Herr Hauptmann, passport difficulties detained me in Paris.”</p> - -<p>“Then all from Reims to Soissons is in Herr Hauptmann’s ordered -mind! It is, as all the most essential would be, in his ‘good -memory’! And, by the latest, today the report was to start to great -headquarters!”</p> - -<p>The secretary jerked about from Ruth and hurried back and forth -across the room, head down and clapping his hands loudly together in -his despair; and Ruth, watching him, sat stark. The importance of -the Picardy front was past, he had said—that front where, in the -tremendous assaults of March, the Germans had thrust their great -salient between Amiens and Paris and where all the allies were -working, day and night, strengthening their lines against a new -attack! The Flanders front, where still the German armies were -hurling themselves toward the channel? Adler did not even mention -that. The “most essential” was the front from Reims to Soissons, all -quiet now and one which—so far as Ruth knew—the allies expected to -remain quiet and where they yet were unprepared for a great attack.</p> - -<p>But there the next tremendous assault must be coming; and it was so -near that, by the latest, today report of conditions upon that front -was to start to great headquarters! Well, whatever was written about -that front Ruth had now in the papers folded tight against her body -and what von Forstner had entrusted to his ordered mind was lost -forever! Keenly she watched Adler while, still striking his hands -together in his helplessness, he strode swiftly up and down.</p> - -<p>He spun about to her suddenly, and for an instant Ruth believed he -was about to challenge her. But the secretary could not yet reach -suspicion of the comrade of his Herr Hauptmann and for whom -Hauptmann von Forstner had instructed rooms to be made ready beside -his own and who herself had completed the journey to Lauengratz -alone and of her own will and bearing Herr Hauptmann’s papers.</p> - -<p>“You removed these yourself from Herr Hauptmann’s body?”</p> - -<p>“No; Dittman procured them for me. I was somewhat injured myself, -you see,” she explained her neglect. “And a little faint, at first.”</p> - -<p>“Of course; of course! But Dittman is a thick skull! He might not -have suspected where Herr Hauptmann might have concealed the most -important memoranda!” Adler livened with hope. “And there were -Russians, I understand, who first found you and dragged out Herr -Hauptmann. They are mere brutes, incapable of understanding -anything. Nevertheless they may have meddled. I shall send and see -and at once myself examine the body of Herr Hauptmann!”</p> - -<p>He turned about and gazed at his papers; he swept them together and -into a drawer. The stencils, by which he had read the ciphers, went -with them. “You will remain here, <i>gnädiges Fräulein</i>,” he half -commanded, half requested, and he hastened from the room.</p> - -<p>Ruth delayed only the instant necessary to make certain that he had -gone upstairs. Suspicion which now turned upon Dittman and upon the -Russians swiftly must approach her; moreover, the hour of arrival of -Oberst-Lieutenant von Fallenbosch was almost here. By her stroke of -boldness and of luck she had succeeded in temporarily overreaching -the secretary whom she had found so unbalanced by the death of his -superior. But she could not possibly hope to dupe von Fallenbosch. -She must fail with him as miserably as she had failed with von -Forstner. And to attempt with him and to fail involved, now, not -only her own destruction but delivery into German hands of that most -essential information which she had intercepted, and loss to the -allies of the knowledge of German plans.</p> - -<p>She opened the drawer which Adler had just closed and she took out -the sheets of von Forstner’s reports and the stencils. She went out -into the hall and, finding it empty, she passed quickly to a door on -the side of the house which, she believed, was not commanded from -the windows of the room where Captain von Forstner’s body lay. In -that direction, also, the forest lay nearer to the house; Ruth went -out and walked toward the trees. An impulse to run almost controlled -her, but she realized that she must be in sight of servants, who -might not question her strolling out away from the house in the warm -spring sunshine but who would immediately report anything which -resembled flight. So she went slowly until she reached the forest; -then she ran—wildly and breathlessly.</p> - -<p>She found a path, well marked and much used and easy to run upon. -Other paths, almost overgrown, opened into it here and there. Ruth -ran by the first few of these; then, choosing arbitrarily, she took -one of the disused ways which twisted north—she noticed—through -denser thickets of budding oaks and beeches; it ascended, too, -bending back and forth up a mountainside which brought the darker -boughs of the black firs drooping about her while, underfoot, the -ground alternately became stony bare and soft with velvety cushions -of pine needles.</p> - -<p>She stopped at last, exhausted and gasping; her pulses were pounding -so in her head that she scarcely could hear, and the forest on every -side limited sight. But so far as she could see and as well as she -could hear there was no alarm of anyone following her. It seemed -absolutely still on the mountainside except for the movement of the -noon breeze in the tree tops; now from somewhere far away and off to -the right she heard the ring of an ax and, after a minute, the fall -of a tree; now the sound of the ax again.</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chXIX' title='The Underground Railway'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER XIX</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY</span> -</h2> - -<p>Ruth sank down upon the ground in a warm, sunny spot where the trees -were more scant than they had been below. They were dense enough, -however, to shield her from sight of anyone in the valley, while -they permitted a view down the mountainside. Off to the west she -could see a stretch of railroad; nearer she got a glimpse of a -highway; she saw horsemen and several slower specks, which must be -men on foot. Oberst-Lieutenant von Fallenbosch had arrived, Ruth -believed, and Adler had started the pursuit after her. But as she -thought of the maze of pathways through the forest she believed that -she was safe for a while—unless a large number of the prisoners -joined in the search and if Adler did not use dogs to track her.</p> - -<p>But she could not make herself safer by farther aimless flight. Here -seemed to be as secure a spot as she might find for the examination -of the documents which she had procured; here was the place to plan. -She laid out upon a rock the pages of von Forstner’s report, and, -placing the stencils, she studied them in series of three, as she -had seen Adler do. These pages—those which Adler had read, together -with those which she had kept concealed—told a plain, certain story. -The Germans at the present moment were concerning themselves with -the minutest details of events before the Reims-Soissons line of the -allies; other sectors, in comparison, were disregarded; before Reims -and Soissons the enemy were maturing their great attack!</p> - -<p>Ruth, having read, gathered together the pages and sat in the sun -gazing away over the Rhine to the west. The feeling of fate—the -touch of destiny—which had exalted and transformed her upon that -cold January morning in Chicago quickened her again. Something -beyond herself originally had sent her into this tremendous -adventure, throughout which she had followed -instinct—chance—fate—whatever you called it—rather than any -conscious scheme. At the outset she had responded simply to impulse -to serve; to get into Germany—how, she did not know; to do -there—what, she had not known. At different times she had formed -plans, of course, many plans; but as she thought back upon them now -they seemed to her to have contemplated only details, as though she -had recognized her incapacity, by conscious plan, to attain this -consummation.</p> - -<p>For she realized that this was consummation. This which she already -had gained, and gained through acts and chances which she could not -have foreseen, was all—indeed, more than all—she could have hoped to -obtain through the vague, delayed ordeals which her fancy had formed -for her. She had nothing more to attempt here in the enemy’s land -than escape and return to the allied lines; she had no right, -indeed, to attempt more; for anything additional which she could -gain would be of such slight value, in comparison with what she now -had, that it could not justify her in heaping hazard upon the risks -which she must run in returning to the allied armies with the -knowledge she possessed.</p> - -<p>There was Gerry Hull, of course. He was in this land of the enemy -somewhere—alive or dead. When she was entering Germany she had -thought of herself as coming, somehow, to find and to aid him. But -what she had gained meant that now she must abandon him.</p> - -<p>She gazed toward the railroad and to the white streak of the road to -Lauengratz, upon which, after a few minutes, a motor again passed; -more horsemen appeared and more specks of walking men. But through -the woods was silence; the axmen, whom she had heard before, began -to fell other trees; and the steadiness of the sound brought Ruth -reassurance. Whatever search was being made below had not yet -disturbed the woodsmen near her. Yet she arose and crept a few -hundred yards farther up the mountainside, and under heavier cover, -before she dropped to the ground again.</p> - -<p>She found herself more relaxed as the rowels of peril, which had -goaded her mercilessly, ceased to incite fresh strength for farther -flight. All her nerves and senses remained alert; but her body was -exhausted and sore. She was hungry, too; and though nothing was -farther from her thought than sleep, nevertheless she suffered the -result not only of the strains of the morning, but also of her -sleeplessness during the night. She was cold, having changed from -her suit to a linen street dress which had been Cynthia Gail’s, and -she was without a hat; so she sought the sun once more and sat back -to a tree and rested.</p> - -<p>If recaptured—she thought of herself as having been captured by von -Forstner—she recognized that she would be shot. Therefore her -recapture with von Forstner’s reports upon her could not make her -fate worse; and in any case she determined to preserve them as proof -to the French—if she ever regained access to the French—that the -information which she bore was authentic. She did up the papers and -the stencils together and secreted them under her clothing.</p> - -<p>She tried to imagine what Adler and Oberst-Lieutenant von -Fallenbosch—who undoubtedly was now saying to Adler a good deal more -than the secretary had dreaded—would expect her to do so that she -could choose the opposite course. The alternatives, obviously, were -effort to reach the Swiss frontier and in some way elude the border -guards or to make for the Alsace front, where the French and the -Americans were fighting.</p> - -<p>This second allured her powerfully; but, to attempt it, meant -leaving this friendly cover of the Black Forest—which would hide her -almost to the Swiss frontier—and crossing west to the Rhine and -across to the Rhine Canal, and almost the whole way across Alsace to -the Vosges Mountains, where the opposing trenches twisted. She knew -that behind the German fighting front she would encounter a military -zone of many miles, much more difficult to penetrate than the -civilian zone bounding the soldier-sentineled barriers at the Swiss -frontier. But, just beyond that zone in Alsace lay American -battalions; above it would be flying American battleplanes.</p> - -<p>Ruth closed her eyes and seemed to see them; one was fighting as she -had seen Gerry Hull fight that morning near Mirevaux. It was he and -he was being shot down!</p> - -<p>She started up, blinking in the sunlight. He had been shot down -again, in truth. This was Germany; and he was in Germany; the enemy -had him—von Forstner’s boasting voice was saying it—dead or a -prisoner. She shuddered and closed her eyes to see, again, Gerry -Hull’s face. She seemed to be looking up at him; he was in -blue-gray—his French uniform. Palms and roses were behind him. They -were in Mrs. Corliss’ conservatory together, their first time alone.</p> - -<p>“You’re not like anyone else here,” he was saying to her. “That’s -why I needed to see you again.... What is it, Cynthia Gail?” A -queer, warm little thrill went through her; she seemed to be still -looking up at him, his arms were about her now; he was carrying her. -They were upon the <i>Ribot</i> and she was telling him that she would -have gone into the sea to get anyone—anyone at all. Now, “Ruth—Ruth -Alden!” he was saying. Her own name; and he liked to repeat it. -“They shan’t!” he was holding her so fiercely. “They shan’t!” Now he -kissed her hand. Her fingers of her other hand closed gently over -the hand he had kissed; so, in the sunlight at the base of a tree -high upon the mountainside above Lauengratz in the Black Forest of -Baden, at last she fell asleep.</p> - -<p>Not soundly nor for extended periods; a score of times she stirred -and started up at sounds made by the breeze or at the passage of -some small forest animal. Once a human footfall aroused her; and she -was amazed to learn how delicate her hearing had been made by alarm -when she discovered how distant the man was. He bore an ax; and -evidently he was a Russian or perhaps a French captive; he passed -upon a path far below without even looking up to where she hid in -the trees. Nevertheless Ruth fled farther about the mountain before -she dared rest again.</p> - -<p>At nightfall she was awake and during the first hours of blackness -she forced her way on in spite of the dismaying difficulties of wood -travel in the dark. She fell repeatedly, even when she ventured upon -a path, or she bruised herself upon boughs and stumbled into -thickets. But she did not give up until the conviction came to her -that she was hopelessly lost.</p> - -<p>At best, she had been proceeding but blunderingly, attempting no -particular course; merely endeavoring to keep to a definite -direction. But now she did not know whether she had worked west of -Lauengratz or had circled it to the east or south. She was cold, -too; and hungry and quite exhausted. Twice she had crossed tiny -brooks—or else the same brook twice—and she had cupped her hands to -drink; thus, with nothing more than the cold mountain water to -restore her, she lay down at last in a little hollow and slept.</p> - -<p>The morning light gave her view over strange valleys with all the -hills and mountain tops in new configuration. She stood up, stiff, -and bruised, and weak; taking her direction from the sun, she -started west, encountering cleared ground soon and a well-traveled -road, which she dared not cross in the daylight. So she followed it -north until a meeting road, with its cleared ground, halted her. At -first she determined to wait until dark; but after a few hours of -frightened waiting she risked the crossing in daylight and fled into -the farther woods unseen. Again that afternoon she came into the -open to cross a north and south road. Early in the evening she -crossed a railroad, which she believed to be the road from Freiburg -to Karlsruhe.</p> - -<p>She had seen many men, women, and children that day, as upon the -previous day, passing on the roads, or busy about houses, or working -in fields, or in the woodlands. Most of the people were Germans; but -many, undoubtedly, were military prisoners or deported civilians. -She had avoided all alike, not daring to approach any house or any -person, though now she had been forty-eight hours without food -except for the “stimulant” and the accompanying biscuit which Adler -had sent her.</p> - -<p>That night, however, she found the shelter of a shed where was straw -and at least a little more warmth than under the trees. Refuge there -involved more risk, she knew; but she had reached almost the end of -her strength; and, lying in the straw and covering herself with it, -she slept dreamlessly at first, and then to reassuring, pleasant -dreams. She was in a château—one of those white-gray, beautiful, -undamaged buildings which she had seen far behind the battle lines -in France; she was lying in a beautiful, soft bed, much like that -which had been hers at Mrs. Mayhew’s apartment upon the Avenue -Kléber. Then all shifted to a great hospital ward, like that in -which she had visited Charles Gail; but she was in the same -beautiful bed and an attendant—a man—had come to take her pulse.</p> - -<p>She stirred, it had become so real; she could feel gentle, but firm, -and very real fingers upon her wrist. Now a man’s voice spoke, in -French and soothingly. “It is well, Mademoiselle, I do not mean harm -to you. I am only Antoine Fayal, a Frenchman from Amagne in the -department of Ardennes, Mademoiselle. I——”</p> - -<p>Opening her eyes, Ruth saw a thin, hollow-cheeked, dark-haired man -of middle age in the rags of blouse and trousers which had been, -once, a French peasant’s attire. He quickly withdrew his hand, which -had been upon Ruth’s wrist; and his bloodless lips smiled -respectfully and reassuringly.</p> - -<p>“I am French, Mademoiselle,” he begged in a whisper. “Believe me! -One of the deported; a prisoner. My duty here, a woodsman! Happening -by here, Mademoiselle, I discovered you; but I alone! No one else. -You will pardon; but you were so white; you barely breathed. I did -not believe you dead, Mademoiselle; but faint, perhaps. So I sought -to ascertain!”</p> - -<p>“I thank you!” Ruth whispered back, feeling for her papers. “Where -are we?”</p> - -<p>“This is part of the estate of Graf von Weddingen, Mademoiselle. We -are very close to the Rhine. You are——” he coughed and altered his -question before completing it. “It may be in my power to aid you, -Mademoiselle?”</p> - -<p>“I am an American,” Ruth said.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Mademoiselle.”</p> - -<p>“I have been trying to reach Alsace and the French and American -lines.”</p> - -<p>“You have done well so far, Mademoiselle,” Fayal said respectfully.</p> - -<p>“How do you know?”</p> - -<p>“I know that at noon yesterday, Mademoiselle, you were twenty -kilometers away. The whole countryside has been warned to find you; -but you have come these twenty kilometers in spite of them.”</p> - -<p>He coughed and checked himself, a little guiltily, as she startled. -“That is, Mademoiselle, if you are that American lady who had -accompanied Hauptmann von Forstner.”</p> - -<p>“I am that one,” Ruth admitted.</p> - -<p>“Then, Mademoiselle, come immediately with me! No moment is to be -lost!”</p> - -<p>He went to the door of the shed and gazed cautiously about. Ruth -arose and began brushing the straw from herself; sleep had restored -her nerves, but not her strength, she found. She swayed when she -stepped. She was completely at the mercy of this man, as she must -have been in the power of whoever found her. But she did not -distrust Fayal. His emaciation, his cough, and, more than those, his -manner—the manner of a man who had been suffering indignities -without letting himself become servile; and together with that, his -concern and respect for a woman—seemed to Ruth beyond counterfeit.</p> - -<p>“You require food, of course, Mademoiselle!” Fayal exclaimed in -dismay. “And I have none!”</p> - -<p>“I can follow you,” Ruth assured.</p> - -<p>“Then now, Mademoiselle!”</p> - -<p>He stepped from the shed, and, motioning to her to imitate him, he -slipped into the trees to the right. Evidently he considered her -danger great; the peril to him, if caught aiding one who was -attempting escape, must be as positive as her own; but the Frenchman -was disregardful of that. He gained a gully, and, returning, aided -her in descending. Someone approached. “Lie flat!” Fayal whispered. -She obeyed; and, while she lay, she heard German voices shouting and -the sounds of search.</p> - -<p>When they had moved far away, Fayal led her to a dugout entrance, -concealed by brush and with last year’s leaves scattered before it.</p> - -<p>“Keep well back in there, Mademoiselle; until I come again for you!”</p> - -<p>She went into a low and dark but fairly dry cavern under the -hillside. She heard Fayal tossing about leaves to hide the entrance -as before. Soon he was gone.</p> - -<p>Many times during the day Ruth heard people passing through the -woods. Once she was sure that a group of men were engaged in a -search; but they failed to find the cavern. Only late in the -afternoon someone, who stepped quickly and lightly—a child or a -slight, active woman—ran close past the brush before the entrance, -and, without halting, tossed a bundle into the bush.</p> - -<p>Ruth had been obeying Fayal’s injunction to stay well back in the -cavern; now, venturing to the bush, she found a paper package, -within which was a chunk of blackish, hard bread and two boiled -turnips. She thought, as she saw this food, that it had been Fayal’s -perhaps; at least, it had been the ration of some prisoner or -deported captive as ill fed, probably, as he. But she was ravenous; -this had been given her, however little it could have been spared by -the donor. She ate it all and was stronger.</p> - -<p>Fayal did not return that day; but during the night someone visited -the cavern, for, when morning came, she found food.</p> - -<p>At night Fayal returned, and when he guided her out of the woods -across fields and farms, she realized how essential were the -precautions he had enjoined. He guided her half the night, and -brought her to another concealment, where another French refugee -took her in charge.</p> - -<p>She had become a passenger, she found, upon one of the “underground -railways” in operation to conduct escaped prisoners across the -frontiers; Fayal, having brought her safely over his section, said -his adieu.</p> - -<p>“The next German attack is to come upon the French on the front -between Reims and Soissons, remember, Fayal,” Ruth enjoined upon the -man when parting with him. “If I fail to get through, you must try -to send the word.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Mademoiselle. But you must not fail. Good fortune, -Mademoiselle, adieu!”</p> - -<p>“Good fortune, Fayal; a thousand thanks again; and—adieu!”</p> - -<p>Her new conductor led her on a few more miles that night; she laid -up during the day; at night proceeded under a new guide.</p> - -<p>So she passed on from hiding place to hiding place, sometimes lying -for days at a time—terrible, torturing delays, during which she -dreamed of the Germans advancing over all that Reims-Soissons front -and sweeping over the French armies as they had overwhelmed the -British in Picardy. And she—she, if she might go on, could prevent -them! Many times during the endless hours she lay alone waiting for -her guide who did not appear, she crept out from her concealment, -determined to force on; but always she learned the futility of -attempting to proceed alone.</p> - -<p>She was following her sixth guide after Fayal, and it was upon the -eleventh evening after her escape from Lauengratz, when suddenly she -heard a rough challenge; German soldiers appeared across the path; -others leaped up from the right and left; yet others were behind.</p> - -<p>Her guide instantly recognized that he had led her into a trap; and -he fought, wildly, to try to save her. She fought, too. But they -bayoneted him, and, upon their bayonets, they bore him back upon -her. A soldier seized her; overpowered her, brutally, and she -struggled no longer with hope to fight free, but only to destroy the -papers which she still carried. So they pinioned her arms; they half -stripped her in searching her; they took her papers, and leaving her -guide dead upon the ground, they hurried her with them to their -commandant.</p> - -<p>This officer instantly suspected her identity. For, in spite of her -eleven nights of flight, she was not yet seventy miles from -Lauengratz. Disposition of her evidently had been predetermined, -pending her recapture; for the officer, after examining her again, -dispatched her to a railroad train, under guard. They put her in -manacles and, boarding a north-bound train, they took her to a town -the name of which she could not learn. From the station they marched -her to what appeared to be an old castle, where they at once -confined her, alone, in a stone-walled cell.</p> - -<p>It possessed a solitary, narrow slit of a window, high up under the -ceiling; it boasted for furniture a cot, a chair and bowls. The -Germans relieved her of the manacles when they led her into this -cell. Not long after she was left alone, light streaked in through -the slit of a window; a hand, opening a panel in her door, thrust in -a dipper of soup and a chunk of bread.</p> - -<p>Ruth received the food, consumed it, and sank down upon her pallet. -Her great venture thus had come to an end; her life was forfeit; and -by all that she had dared and done, she had accomplished—nothing.</p> - -<p>No; more than nothing. She had caused the arrest of De Trevenac and -those taken with him; she had aided at least a little in the -frightful labors of the retreat from Mirevaux. She had saved the -life of Gerry Hull!</p> - -<p>She never before had permitted herself to think that she had saved -Gerry; without her he might have been able to free himself from -under his machine. But now she let herself believe.</p> - -<p>This gave her a share in the battles which he had fought over the -advancing enemy lines. Yes; she had accomplished more than nothing. -Yet how much less than she had dreamed! And all of her dream—or most -of it—might actually have come true! She had possessed the German -plan; indeed, she still possessed the knowledge of the front of the -next assault and something of the detail of the enemy operations! -She had committed it, verbally, to Fayal and to others of her -guides; so it was possible that it might yet reach the allied lines. -But she realized that, even though Fayal or one of the others sent -the word through, it must completely lack authority; it must reach -the French as merely a rumor—a trick of the enemy, perhaps; it could -not be heeded.</p> - -<p>She sat up with muscles all through her tugging taut. It seemed that -with her frantic strength, with her bare hands she must rend those -stones and escape, not to save herself, but to return to the allied -lines and tell them what she knew. But the coldness of the stones, -when she touched them, shocked her to realizations.</p> - -<p>Tomorrow—or perhaps even today—the enemy might take her out and kill -her. And while death—her individual, personal annihilation—had -become a matter of amazingly small account, yet the recognition that -with death must come withdrawal, perhaps, even from knowledge of how -the battle was going upon that line where the fate of all the world -was at stake, where Britons and French fought as she had seen them -fight, and where, at last, America was arriving—that crushed her -down to her pallet and with despair quite overwhelmed her.</p> - -<p>So she set herself to thinking of Gerry. He was alive, perhaps; a -prisoner, therefore, and to be returned some day when the war was -over, to marry Lady Agnes, while she.... Ruth did not shudder when -she thought of herself dead.</p> - -<p>Perhaps Gerry was dead; then she would be going at once to join him. -And if they merely took her out and shot her today, or tomorrow, or -some day soon, without doing anything more to her than that, she -might find Gerry and rejoin him, much as she had been when he had -known her and—yes—liked her. Without having suffered indignity, that -was. These cold stones seemed at least to assure her of this. So she -lay and thought of him while the slit of light crept slowly from -left to right as the sun swung to the west and she listened for the -step of those who would come to her cell.</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chXX' title='An Officers’ Prison'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER XX</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>AN OFFICERS’ PRISON</span> -</h2> - -<p>Gerry, when shot down over the German lines, had succeeded in making -that “some sort of landing” which his comrades had reported.</p> - -<p>There was an axiom, taught in the training camps to give confidence -to cadets, which said that when a pilot once gets his wheels -squarely on the ground, he will not be killed, though his machine -may be badly smashed. Gerry, in his landing, had tested this axiom -to its utmost; for he had had sufficient control of his ship, at the -last, to put his wheels square to the ground; and though his machine -was wholly wrecked, he was not killed. He was painfully shaken and -battered; but so excellently was his ship planned to protect the -pilot in a “crash,” that he was not even seriously injured. Indeed, -after the German soldiers dragged him out he was able to stand—and -was quite able, so the German intelligence officers decided, to -undergo an ordeal intended to make him divulge information.</p> - -<p>This ordeal failed, as it failed with all brave men taken prisoners; -and Gerry was given escort out of the zone of the armies and put -upon a train for a German prison camp. With him were an American -infantry lieutenant and two French officers.</p> - -<p>The Germans held, at that time, nearly two million prisoners of war, -of which upwards of twenty thousand were officers; the men and -non-commissioned officers—as Gerry had heard—were distributed in -more than a hundred great camps, while for the officers there were -about fifty prisons scattered all over the German states. These -varied in character from sanatoria, newly erected high-school -buildings, hotels, and vacated factories, to ancient brick and stone -fortresses housing prisoners in their dark, damp casemates. The -<i>offizier-gefangenenlager</i> to which Gerry and his three companions -finally were taken proved to be one of the old fortress castles just -east of the Rhine, in the grand duchy of Hesse; its name was -Villinstein, and it housed at that time about five hundred officers -and officers’ servants. There Gerry and his three companions were -welcomed, not alone for themselves, but for the news which they -brought with them; and Gerry, being an aviator, found himself -particularly welcome.</p> - -<p>“For a flyin’ man we’ve been a-waitin’, Gerry, dear,” Captain -O’Malley—formerly of the Irish Fusiliers—whispered and all but -chanted into Gerry’s ear soon after they became acquainted. All -allied officer prisoners—as German official reports frequently -complained—planned an escape; but some schemed more than others. And -the heart, if not the soul, of the schemes of escape from -Villinstein was the black-haired, dark-eyed, light-hearted Kerry man -of twenty-four summers, who was back in the casemates with his -fellows again after six weeks of “the solitary” in a dungeon as -punishment for his last effort for liberty.</p> - -<p>“’Tis this way,” O’Malley initiated Gerry immediately into the order -of those bound to break for freedom. They were standing alone at a -corner of the castle, which gave view over the ground to the east. -“Out there you see the first wire—’tis often charged with -electricity at night—to catch us if we leap over these walls. Beyond -you see the second entanglement of the same persuasion; after -that—nothing at all! Do you see?”</p> - -<p>Gerry admitted vision, as though the walls below them, the guards -and the two wire barriers were merest trifles.</p> - -<p>“We’ve been beyond many times,” the Irishman motioned, unfolding his -theory of immateriality of the apparent obstacles. “Many times.”</p> - -<p>“How?” Gerry inquired.</p> - -<p>“By burrow, mostly. Now and then in other ways; but by tunnel is -most certain. ’Tis harmless amusement for us, the enemy think; so -they let us dig, though they know we’re doing it, till we’re ready -to run out. Then they halt us and claim the reward. ’Tis arranged -so.”</p> - -<p>Gerry nodded. He had heard long before, from escaped prisoners, that -at certain camps the Germans made little attempt to prevent -tunneling until the burrows were almost completed. The German system -of rewards, by some peculiar psychology of the command, gave more -credit to guards for “detecting” an escape than at first preventing -it.</p> - -<p>“This time ’twill be different!” O’Malley promised, smacking his -lips.</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“They don’t know where we’re burrowing.”</p> - -<p>“How many times before haven’t they known?” Gerry asked cautiously.</p> - -<p>“Many times,” O’Malley admitted. “But this time they don’t. We’re -working at two they know about, of course; but the third—” he -checked himself and looked about cautiously, then spoke more closely -to Gerry’s ear. “’Tis well planned now. Ye’ve seen the tennis court -in the courtyard?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly,” Gerry said.</p> - -<p>“Did ye note the fine new grandstand we built about it?”</p> - -<p>He referred, obviously, to the tiers of steps, or seats, to -accommodate the spectators at the match games for the championship -of the camp which then were being played.</p> - -<p>“Under the stands where they run up against the side of the canteen -building,” O’Malley confided, “is a fine, empty space for hiding -dirt which the Huns don’t yet inspect—that not yet being listed for -inspection, nothing yet having happened beneath. So there we’re -digging the true tunnel—besides the two that everyone knows about. -Now that you’re here, we’ll use it. We’ve been only awaiting—while -wishing nobody any hard luck—for a flying man. For we’ve been beyond -the wire many times,” the Irishman repeated. “But now with you here, -we’ll go farther.” And he gazed away to the east, where airplanes -were circling in the clear sky.</p> - -<p>They had risen from an airdrome about two miles distant from -Villinstein, Gerry learned, where the Germans were training cadet -flyers. O’Malley had managed to learn something of the arrangement -of the airdrome and had observed the habits of the cadets; he had a -wonderful plan by which the party of prisoners, who should use the -secret tunnel to get beyond the wire, should surprise the guards at -the flying field and capture an airplane. Thus Gerry began his -prison life with a plot for escape.</p> - -<p>At times he took his turn digging in the tunnel; at times he was one -of the crowd of spectators upon the stand about the tennis court, -who stamped and applauded loudly whenever the men working below -signaled for a little noise to mask their more audible activities; -at times he himself took part in the play.</p> - -<p>Every few days groups of prisoners were permitted to take a tramp in -the neighborhood under the escort of a couple of German officers. To -obtain this privilege, each prisoner was required to give his parole -not to attempt to escape while on these expeditions; but as the -parole bound no one after the return to the fortress, the prisoners -gave it. Gerry in this way obtained a good view of the surroundings -of Villinstein; and in one way or another he and the other officers -picked up a good deal of news which otherwise would not have reached -the prison.</p> - -<p>It was in this manner that word reached the officer prisoners at -Villinstein that an American girl, who had entered Germany by way of -Switzerland in an attempt to obtain military information, had been -captured and had been taken to the <i>schloss</i> belonging to von -Fallenbosch, near Mannheim, fifty miles away. It was not known -whether she had been executed or whether she still was living; -indeed, it was not known whether she had been tried yet; or whether -she was to be tried; and her identity—except that she was an -American girl—also was a mystery. That is, it was unknown to the -prisoner who brought in the news and to the others to whom he told -it; but it was not a mystery to Gerry. He knew that the girl was -Ruth Alden—that she had gone on with her plan and been caught.</p> - -<p>And the knowledge imbued him with furious dismay. He blamed himself -as the cause of her being at the mercy of the enemy. He had seen no -way past the dilemma which had confronted him in regard to her, -except to make a negative report in regard to Ruth which—he had -hoped—would both keep her free from trouble with the French -authorities and prevent her gaining permission to leave France for -Switzerland. He had learned, too late, that while he had -accomplished the former end, he had failed in the latter. She had -been allowed to proceed to Switzerland; then he was shot down and -captured.</p> - -<p>It had been impossible, therefore, for him to seek further -information of her fate; but he had her in his mind almost -constantly. When he was by himself, in such isolation as Villinstein -afforded, his thoughts dwelt upon her. He liked to review, half -dreamily as he sat in a corner of a casemate with a book, all his -hours with her and recall—or imagine—how she looked that first time -she had spoken to him. The days upon the <i>Ribot</i> had become, -marvelously, days with her. Quite without his will—and certainly -without his conscious intention—Agnes had less and less place in his -recollections of the voyage. She was always there, of course; but -his thought and his feelings did not of themselves restore to him -hours with her. It was the same when he was talking over personal -and home affairs with the men with whom he became best -acquainted—with O’Malley and a Canadian captain named Lownes; when -the Irishman spoke of the girl waiting for him and when Lownes—who -was married—told of his wife, Gerry mentioned Ruth; and—yes—he -boasted a bit of her.</p> - -<p>“I thought,” O’Malley said to him later, “that you were engaged to -an English girl, the daughter of an earl or such.”</p> - -<p>Gerry colored a little. “We’ve been good friends; that’s all, -Michael; never more than that. When we happened to go to America on -the same boat, our papers over there tried to make more of it; and -some of their stuff reached this side.”</p> - -<p>This was true enough; but it left out of account the fact that, not -long ago, Gerry had hoped himself some day to make “more of it”; -and, later, he had not tried. Now, as he thought back he knew that -Agnes had never loved him; and he had not loved her. This strange -girl whom he had known at first as Cynthia, and then as Ruth Alden, -had stirred in him not only doubts of the ideas by which he had -lived; she had roused him to requirements of friendship—of love, let -him admit it now—which he had not felt before. Their ride together -away from Mirevaux, when he sat almost helpless and swaying at her -side after she had saved his life, became to him the day of -discovery of her and of himself. He could see her so clearly as her -eyes blurred with tears when she told him about “1583;” and he knew -that then he loved her. Their supper together at Compiègne became to -him the happiest hour of his life. He had felt for her more strongly -that evening of their last parting in the <i>pension</i>; but then the -shadow of her great venture was over them.</p> - -<p>Everything which happened somehow reminded him of her. When he was -out of the prison during the walks on parole and he passed groups of -German civilians and overheard their remarks about America, he -thought of her. The Germans were perfectly able to understand why -France fought, and why England fought, and why Russia had fought; -but why had America come in? Why was America making her tremendous -effort? What was she to gain? Nothing—nothing material, that was. -The enemy simply could not understand it except by imputing to -America motives and aims which Gerry knew were not true. Thus from -experience with the enemy he was beginning to appreciate that -feeling which Ruth had possessed and tried to explain to him—feeling -of the true nobility of his country. So, as he went on his walks in -Germany, he was proud that his uniform marked him as an American. -Prouder—yes, prouder than he could have been under any other coat!</p> - -<p>He had intended to tell her so; but now she was taken and in the -hands of the Germans! They would execute her; perhaps already they -had! From such terrors there was no relief but work—work in the -tunnel, by which he must escape, and then save her, or die trying.</p> - -<p>A little more news arrived; the American girl was believed to be yet -alive; that was four days ago.</p> - -<p>“We must work faster,” O’Malley enjoined after hearing this; and -Gerry, who had not yet said anything about his private fears, -learned that others in the camp also planned to rescue the American -girl under sentence at the <i>schloss</i>. The camp—which in six months -had not succeeded in getting one of their own number free—swore now -to save the prisoner of von Fallenbosch. Such was the spirit of the -<i>offizier-gefangenenlager</i> of Villinstein.</p> - -<p>So Gerry told O’Malley and Lownes about Ruth Alden; and together -they laid their plans. Two days later the Irishman grasped Gerry’s -arm tightly.</p> - -<p>“We wait, bye, only for a moon.”</p> - -<p>“You mean the bore’s finished?”</p> - -<p>“As near as may be till the night of use. You’ve the almanac; when -will be the moon big enough to give you light to fly?”</p> - -<p>“Fri—no, Thursday, Mike?”</p> - -<p>“You’ll be certain, bye; you’ll not spoil all by impulsiveness.”</p> - -<p>“Thursday will be all right, if it’s clear, Mike.”</p> - -<p>“Then pray, bye, for a dark evening.”</p> - -<p>“And a clear night!”</p> - -<p>“Aye; a clear night—to find Mannheim!”</p> - -<p>And Thursday evening came, overclouded, yet with a moon behind the -clouds which shone bright and clear for minutes at a time, then, -obscured, left all the land in blackness.</p> - -<p>The digging parties of the last week had placed in the tunnel enough -food from the officers’ packages, which arrived regularly through -Switzerland, to supply three days’ rations for ten men; so that -night the ten descended into the tunnel. They recognized it was -possible that the guards knew about the tunnel and had permitted -them to enter it that night only to catch them at the other end. The -test would come when taps was sounded and the German officer of the -day, making his rounds of the barracks, would find ten men missing -roll call.</p> - -<p>Gerry then was lying on his face in the tunnel and passing back dirt -which those in front of him excavated. Only by counting the drumming -of his heart could he estimate the minutes passing, but he knew that -the delay in the tunnel was longer than O’Malley had planned.</p> - -<p>“Taps! Taps!” came the word from Lownes, at the prison end of the -burrow, who had heard the German bugle blow. From forward, where -O’Malley was digging, dirt kept coming back, and still more dirt. -For the diggers had not dared to run the bore to the surface, nor, -indeed, near enough to the surface so that a sentinel, treading -above, would break through. At best, therefore, O’Malley, who was -finishing the bore, had a fair amount left to do.</p> - -<p>“The alarm! The alarm!”</p> - -<p>Gerry, gasping in the stifling air of the burrow, could not hear the -bugle or the bells; the warning was passed to him by the man at his -heels; and Gerry passed the alarm on to the heels at his head. The -Germans knew now that men were missing; the camp guards were out, -the police dogs let loose; sentinels would fire, without challenge, -at anyone sighted outside of the barracks.</p> - -<p>But from past the heels at Gerry’s head a fresh, cool current of air -was moving. He drew deep breaths, and as the heels crawled from him -he thrust upon his elbows and crept after. The bore was open; -O’Malley was out upon the ground. The heels ahead of Gerry altered -to a hand, which reached into the burrow, caught Gerry’s arm, and -dragged him out. Kneeling at the edge of the hole, he thrust his arm -down, caught someone, and pulled him out.</p> - -<p>O’Malley was gone; the man whose hand had helped Gerry also had -vanished. Gerry made no attempt to find or follow them as he -crouched and ran; the plan was that all would scatter immediately. -Machine guns were going; searchlights were sweeping the ground. -Gerry fell flat when a beam swung at him, went over and caught some -other poor devil. A field piece upon a platform on the edge of the -camp opened upon the space a hundred yards beyond Gerry and shrapnel -began smashing.</p> - -<p>One good thing about shrapnel Gerry recognized; it spread smoke -which screened the searchlight flares. Another feature was that it -and the machine-gun fire was as hard on the police dogs as upon the -fugitives. But that was like the Germans—when they were surprised—to -let go everything at once.</p> - -<p>Gerry jumped up and fled, taking his chances with the machine-gun -bullets and with the shrapnel which burst all about at random; but -he watched the searchlights and threw himself down when they -threatened.</p> - -<p>O’Malley had planned a surprise attack in force—if you can call ten -unarmed men a force when attacking a German flying field. But Gerry -knew that already the ten must be cut in two. Some of them probably -never got out of the tunnel; the machine guns or the shrapnel surely -must have accounted for one or two. He heard dogs give tongue as -they were taught to do when they had caught prisoners.</p> - -<p>The Irishman’s plan, wild enough at best, had become hopeless. Gerry -had offered no other plan, because he had failed to form anything -less mad. But now as he lay on the ground, while a searchlight -streamed steadily above him, a plan offered itself.</p> - -<p>This came from the clouds and from the moon shining through when, as -now, the clouds split and parted—from the moon whose rising and -shining full O’Malley and he had awaited. They had waited for the -moon to furnish them light for their night flight in a German -airplane after they got the machine. They had not thought of the -moon as bringing them a “ship.” But now, above the rattle of the -machine guns and between the smashings of the shrapnel, Gerry heard -motors in the air and he knew that night-flying Hun-birds were up. -For their pilots, too, had been waiting for the moon for practice.</p> - -<p>It is all very well to talk about night flying in the dark; but -Gerry knew how difficult—almost impossible—is flight in actual -darkness. When he had been in training for night flying, years ago -at his French training field, he had waited so many weeks for the -moon that now he jeered at himself, lying flat under the searchlight -beam, for a fool not to have thought of German flyers being up -tonight.</p> - -<p>They were up—six or eight of them at least. He could see their -signal lights when he could not hear their motors. They had come -overhead when the lights at the prison blazed out and the guns got -going. The machine guns and the shrapnel fire ceased; only the -searchlights glared out over the fields beyond the prison wire. The -moon went under the clouds again. Gerry knew he could dodge the -searchlights; but now he made no attempt whatever to flee. Instead, -he crept back toward the prison, and between the beams of lights, -which reached away to the south, almost parallel, and which swung -back and forth slightly.</p> - -<p>Except for those lights, all was black now; and Gerry knew how those -searchlight beams must tempt some German cadet making his first -night flight under the clouds. Gerry had been a cadet flying at -night in the darkness with clouds closing overhead. He knew how -strange and terrifying was the blackness of the ground; how welcome -was any light giving view of a landing place. The airdrome, with its -true landing lights, was two miles to the south; but what was -direction, and what was a difference of two miles to a cadet coming -down through the clouds, and “feeling” in the darkness for the -ground? Gerry himself only a few months before, when caught by -closing clouds, had come down in a field six miles from the one he -sought. Indeed, French airmen flying at night had come down in -German airdromes by mistake, as Germans had come down in French.</p> - -<p>So Gerry lay in the blackness between the searchlight beams, -accusing himself for dullness in not having known. If he had seen an -escape before, and seen these searchlights shooting out over the -fields, he might have realized how they imitated landing lights; but -he had not; and O’Malley—if he lived—would be waiting for him by the -flying field. No, not O’Malley. For the Irishman’s voice whispered -to him gently. O’Malley dragged himself up.</p> - -<p>“Bye, you’re hit, too?”</p> - -<p>“No; I’m all right. You?”</p> - -<p>“’Twas bad planned, all.” The Irishman took blame upon himself for -the catastrophe which had befallen the others. “I doubt whether any -of them——”</p> - -<p>His lips lay to Gerry’s ear; but Gerry turned his head.</p> - -<p>“You can stand and fight a minute, O’Malley?”</p> - -<p>“Arrah! You see them coming?”</p> - -<p>“It’s overhead, O’Malley; listen. One of them’s trying to get down. -Maybe there’s two men in it.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean I should hear?”</p> - -<p>“The silence,” Gerry said. “One of them just shut off above us.”</p> - -<p>“I’m affecting you, bye,” said O’Malley. “But I know what you mean.”</p> - -<p>The silence to which Gerry referred was only comparative; the motor -was shut off in the German airplane which was trying to “get down”; -but the rush of the volplane kept the airscrew thrashing audibly. -The sound passed a hundred yards overhead; it increased suddenly to -a roar as the pilot opened his throttle; and Gerry knew that in -volplaning down, the cadet had misjudged the ground and had switched -on his engine to give him power to circle about and try for the -landing again.</p> - -<p>The roar returned; throttled down; the airscrew thrashed; -black-crossed wings darted through the beams of a searchlight; the -pilot got his wheels on the ground and his machine was bounding. -Gerry was on his feet and running after it. O’Malley followed. The -airplane rolled slowly through the second pencil of light and, as -the pilot stepped from his seat, Gerry charged him from behind. -Gerry tackled him and knocked him down; Gerry jerked out the -German’s automatic pistol.</p> - -<p>“O’Malley?” Gerry challenged the figure which struggled up.</p> - -<p>“Bye!”</p> - -<p>“There was only one on board. I have him. Take his pistol -ammunition, his helmet, and goggles.”</p> - -<p>“I have them, bye.”</p> - -<p>“Get aboard—in the forward seat pit!”</p> - -<p>Gerry backed to the machine himself, holding the German covered. The -prisoner dodged back and moved to wreck his machine. Gerry fired and -the German fell.</p> - -<p>Gerry jumped into the pilot’s pit; the engine and the airscrew the -German had left just turning over; Gerry opened wide, and felt his -wheels rolling; an exultation of relief and triumph, rather than -definite sense, told him that he was flying. Little lights set over -dials before him informed of the accustomed details by strange -scales and meters—his speed, his height, his direction of flight, -and the revolutions his engine was making.</p> - -<p>He gazed below at the ground lights from which he had risen; he -turned about. The machine which he had captured, like most training -machines, was big and heavy; its body could be arranged for two -seats or for one. O’Malley had found the other pit; and though the -machine had been balanced for pilot only, the trick of flying with -weight forward was easy for Gerry.</p> - -<p>He switched on the light above the mapboard and found spread before -him a large detail map of the immediate vicinity. Below was a chart -of smaller scale for use in case the pilot “flew out” of the first -map and was lost. But Gerry was satisfied with the one already in -position. It gave him Mannheim and—he bent closer to see clearly -upon the vibrating surface—the grounds and wood von Fallenbosch and -also the speck of the <i>schloss</i>.</p> - -<p>The feeling of boundless power, limitless recklessness to dare and -do, which flight had first brought to him as a cadet years before, -reclaimed him. Flight, that miraculous endowment, was his again. He -passed to O’Malley the German pilot’s hood; he protected his own -eyes with the goggles, and, watching the ground to estimate the wind -drift, he set his course by compass for Mannheim. What he was to do -there he did not know; and he no longer attempted to form any plan. -The event—inevitable and yet unforseeable—which had brought him this -ship had taught him tonight to cease to plan. He was flying, and -content to let fate guide him. Somehow—he had no idea at all of -how—but somehow this night he would find Ruth Alden and take her -with him. Destiny—the confidence in the guidance of fate which comes -to every soldier and, more than to any other, to the flying fighter -of the sky—set him secure and happy in the certainty of this.</p> - -<p>He had climbed above the clouds and was flying smoothly and serenely -in the silver moonlight. He was flying solitarily, too; for if alarm -had spread upon the ground to tell that escaped prisoners had taken -a German machine, it had not yet communicated itself to a pilot in -position to pursue. Behind him lay only the moonlight and the stars; -below, the sheen of cloud tops, unearthly, divine; the sheen split -and gaped in great chasms, through which the moonlight slanted down, -lighting great spots of darkness separated by the glinting path of -the Rhine. The river made his piloting simple; he had only to sight -it when the clouds cleared, and he must follow to Mannheim.</p> - -<p>There was a machine gun set in the nacelle before O’Malley, and -Gerry saw the Irishman working with it. O’Malley pulled the trigger, -firing a few trial shots, and turned back to Gerry and grinned. The -noise of the motor and the airscrew prevented Gerry from -communicating any plan to his comrade, even if Gerry had one, but he -knew that, in whatever happened, he could count upon O’Malley’s -complete recklessness and instant wit.</p> - -<p>Lights were below—most of them a bit back from the river. That would -be the city of Worms; a few more miles, and Gerry must decide what -he was going to do. But for the moment the sensation of freedom and -of flight together continued to intoxicate him. The Rhine wavered -away to the east, straightened south; ahead—far ahead—lights. There -was Mannheim.</p> - -<p>But O’Malley, in the forward seat, had turned, and, with an arm, -pointed him forward and above. And far ahead, and higher, Gerry -spied dancing specks which caught the moonbeams—specks set in -regular order across the sky and advancing in formation. An air -squadron flying north!</p> - -<p>Below it mighty crimson flashes leaped from the ground, and through -the clatter of his motor Gerry heard the detonation of tremendous, -thunderous charges. Now black spots of smoke floated before the -flying specks, and from the ground guns spat fiery into -action—German anti-aircraft guns replying to aerial torpedoes -dropped from the sky.</p> - -<p>Others besides the officer prisoners of Villinstein and the German -cadets of the nearby airdrome had waited for the moon that night. -Allied pilots also had waited; and now, with the moon to favor and -guide them, they had come to attack the chemical works and the -munition factories of Mannheim! An allied air raid was on that -night!</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chXXI' title='The Raid on the Schloss'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER XXI</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>THE RAID ON THE SCHLOSS</span> -</h2> - -<p>Gerry’s feet thrust on the rudder bar, swinging his machine to meet -them, while hot rills ran through his limbs, warming him against the -chill of the night flight above the clouds. He had thought of the -frontier as a hundred and fifty miles away—two hours’ flight at best -in this slow, heavy training “bus”—but here his friends were -bringing it to him. His excitement prevented him from realizing -instantly that to his friends he must appear an enemy—a -black-crossed Hun-bird flying to fight them.</p> - -<p>A covey of German pursuit planes, flushed up from some airdrome near -the raided city, swooped upward in front of Gerry, climbing for the -advantage of altitude before starting their attack upon the raiders. -Gerry could see them clearly—triplane Fokkers mostly, of the -swiftest, best-climbing, and best-armed type. Some of them saw him, -but saw, too, that his machine was German. Probably the pilots -wondered what that old “bus” was doing there, but no one -investigated, while Gerry flew on.</p> - -<p>The clouds had quite cleared below, but the city of Mannheim, -speckled with lights a few minutes before, lay dark except where the -great crimson bursts of the allied torpedoes erupted; where flames -fanned from roofs of burning buildings; where the scintillant points -of searchlights glared into the sky. Rockets streaked above the -black city; shells flared and flaked in the air; and the glory of -battle grasped Gerry. Grasped O’Malley, too. He patted his machine -gun and turned about in his seat, appealing to Gerry.</p> - -<p>Above them the Fokkers and the other machines of the German defense -were diving and engaging the raiders; a light caught the under wings -of a plane and showed Gerry the tricolor circles of the allies. -Before it sparks streaked—the illuminated tracer bullets streaming -from the machine guns; and toward it, beyond it—now through it—other -sparks streaked back. These were the tracer bullets of the German -who was attacking; and Gerry, jerking back his elevator, tried to -climb; but the big, lumbering training “bus” responded only slowly.</p> - -<p>When he threw up the nose, bringing the forward machine gun to bear, -O’Malley loosed a burst of bullets, though the target German plane -was five hundred yards away. A range of that length was all right -for machine-gun work on the ground, but in the air—with firing gun -and with the target flying—it was sure waste. Gerry bent forward and -pummeled O’Malley’s back to tell him so. But the Irishman did not -turn; while Gerry climbed, the raiders and the Germans dropped, -bringing the battle nearer, and O’Malley had a target now at two -hundred yards from which he would not be withheld.</p> - -<p>The range still shortened, and bullets streaked down past Gerry. He -gazed above and tried to dodge; O’Malley looked up; he saw the -tricolor circle and did not reply. One of their own people, having -sighted the black cross, was coming down upon them, taking them for -German. And at the same instant the far-off Fokker at which O’Malley -had been firing realized that there was something wrong about this -big, slow, black-crossed machine; the German swung upon it, his -machine guns going. Gerry’s engine went dead and he found himself -automatically guiding the “bus” in a volplane which he was keeping -as slow and as “flat” as possible as he glided below the battle and -sought upon the ground for a place to land.</p> - -<p>He examined his altimeter and learned that he was still up four -thousand feet, and with the flat gliding angle of the wide-winged -training biplane, he knew that he had a radius of more than two -miles for the choice of his landing. The battle was still going on -above Mannheim, as the allied bombers had swung back. A machine -flashed into flame and started down, with its pilot evidently -controlling it at first; then too much of the wing fabric was -consumed and it dropped. Other machines, too, were leaving the -battle; some of them seemed to be Germans damaged and withdrawing; -others appeared to be all right—they had just spent their -ammunition, perhaps. One got on the tail of Gerry’s machine, looked -him over, and then dropped past him.</p> - -<p>Gerry was gliding north and west of the city, making for wide, open -spaces shown on the map which he had been studying—the smooth spaces -of the fields of the Schloss von Fallenbosch. Five hundred yards -away through the moonlight, and at almost his same altitude, he saw -another machine gliding, as he was, with engine shut off; the circle -of their volplane swept them toward each other.</p> - -<p>In the forward seat pit of the English machine—for Gerry steered -close enough not only to see the allied insignia but the distinctive -details of the British bombing plane—the man who had been bomber and -machine gunner was lying back with head dropped; and the pilot, too, -had been hit. He seemed to be half fainting, only spurring himself -up for a few seconds at a time to control his glide.</p> - -<p>Gerry stood up as they glided side by side; he hoped that the -Englishman could make out his uniform in the moonlight. He knew it -was little likely that the other could hear his shout, yet he -yelled: “I’m American; follow me!” And dropping back to his seat, -Gerry set himself to selecting the best spot for his landing. -Whether or not the English pilot saw or heard, he followed Gerry -down. The clear moonlight displayed the ground bare and smooth; it -was hard to guess just when to cease dropping and, turning straight -into the wind, give your elevators that last little upturn which -would permit landing on your wheels and rolling; but he did it, and, -turning in his seat as the rolling slowed, he saw the English plane -bounding upon the field; it leaped, threatened to topple, but came -down on its wheels again. Gerry had his hand on O’Malley. Together -they leaped down and ran to where the English biplane had halted.</p> - -<p>The English pilot had regained strength; he had succeeded even in -lifting the body of his bomber out of his machine; and, considering -himself captured, he hastened to remove the top of his fuel tank in -order to set fire to his ship. Gerry observed this and shouted:</p> - -<p>“Don’t do that! We’re escaped prisoners! We’re Irish and American. -Don’t!”</p> - -<p>His voice carried; and the English pilot delayed with his match. If -any German was near, he did not evidence his presence. If any of the -enemy flyers had noticed the descent of the English biplane, -probably they had seen the black-crossed machine following it down. -So Gerry and the English pilot stood undisturbed, estimating each -other in the moonlight. A machine-gun bullet had grazed the -Englishman’s head; but he was fast recovering from the shock. Gerry -adjusted a first-aid bandage to stay the blood.</p> - -<p>“Your ship’s all right?” Gerry asked.</p> - -<p>“Look at it.”</p> - -<p>“Looks all right; and bombs!” Gerry cried out, discovering a pair of -bombs still hanging in the racks. “You came down with bombs on!”</p> - -<p>“I was gone—part the time,” the Englishman explained. “Thought I’d -released ’em.”</p> - -<p>Gerry was not finding fault. Bombs he had; and, to take the place of -the German training machine, here was a ship with engine undamaged, -and which could fly again, and quite capable—after its bombs were -used—of bearing three men and a girl. Wisely had Gerry determined -that night not to try to guide fate. Events unforeseeable again had -him in their grasp. He gazed half a mile away where the gray walls -of the <i>schloss</i> shimmered in the moonlight.</p> - -<p>“There’s a girl in there,” he said to the English pilot. “An -American girl we’re going to have out. Will you help us?”</p> - -<p>“How?”</p> - -<p>“Lay those last two eggs close to the castle,” Gerry motioned to the -pair of bombs in the rack. “That will drive ’em all to the cellars; -then keep circling above ’em, as if to lay more eggs to keep ’em -there. O’Malley and I’ll rush the castle.”</p> - -<p>“You two alone?” the Englishman asked.</p> - -<p>“Alone?” Gerry laughed. “Lay your eggs, old hawk! Lay your eggs; and -two’s a crowd for that castle tonight! The only danger’s getting -lost in the halls! But in case someone shows, lend us your pistol—we -have one. Then lay your eggs—close but not on; and keep flying above -ten minutes more!”</p> - -<p>The occupants of the Schloss von Fallenbosch all had been aroused -many minutes earlier by the burst of the first bombs in the city. -The detonations, followed immediately by the alarm and by the sound -of the anti-aircraft guns replying, had sent the citizens of -Mannheim scurrying to their cellars. The allied raiders never -attacked intentionally the dwelling places of the city; their -objectives were solely the chemical and munition works; but the -German population—knowing how their own flyers bombed open cities -indiscriminately—always expected similar assaults upon themselves. -Moreover, they well knew the difficulties of identifying objectives -from high in the air and the greater difficulty of confining attack -to a limited area; then there were the machine-gun bullets from the -aerial battle and the bits of shrapnel showering back upon the city.</p> - -<p>But the <i>schloss</i> heretofore had been quite removed from attack; it -was far enough from the city to be in small danger from the falling -shells of the high angle guns. So Oberst-Lieutenant von Fallenbosch -and his aids, his wife and his servants, when roused merely went to -their windows and watched the sky curiously and without idea of -personal danger. If they thought at all about the prisoner confined -in the cell in the old wing of the <i>schloss</i> it was to consider her -quite securely held; she, too, was roused, undoubtedly, and -listening to the sounds which told that pilots from the allied -forces were fighting within a mile or two. But what could she hope -from them?</p> - -<p>Ruth, indeed, was aroused. This night was the first since she had -been taken, upon which the allies had attacked at Mannheim; but she -had recognized the distinctive sounds—distant but tremendous—which -told of a raid. Her window was open but for its bars, and its height -in the wall, instead of interfering, facilitated inspection of the -sky.</p> - -<p>It gave her view over only a limited quadrilateral, of course, but -every few seconds something happened in that space—shells burst, or -a searchlight swept across, or a rocket flared—more than enough to -make her sure that a real attack was on. Once she had a glimpse of -an airplane upon which a searchlight glared and about which shrapnel -burst; that meant she had seen a French, or English, or an American -machine!</p> - -<p>To her, who was about to die, the sight was enormously exciting. Not -that it brought her shadow of hope for herself. For the first five -days following her capture she had been kept shut up in her cell, -seeing only the man who brought her food and refused any right of -access to anyone else.</p> - -<p>At the end of the five days she had been led before a military court -of three men—von Fallenbosch and two other officers—who accused, -tried, and sentenced her without permitting her any semblance of -defense; she was led back and locked up again awaiting the day for -the execution of the death penalty, which had been left to the -discretion or the whim of Oberst-Lieutenant von Fallenbosch.</p> - -<p>Her end might come, therefore, upon any day, or upon any hour, and -without warning; it might not come for weeks or months; her -execution might not, indeed, occur at all. But a more terrible -suspense of sentence scarcely could be devised. Its purpose -ostensibly was to make her disclose facts which the Germans believed -that she knew. Of course they had held inquisition of her -immediately upon capture and several times since, but without -satisfactory result; so they kept her locked up. For reading matter -she was supplied with German newspapers.</p> - -<p>These proclaimed with constantly increasing boastfulness the -complete triumph of the German arms. Everywhere the Germans had -attacked, the allies had crumpled, fleeing in disorder, leaving guns -by the hundred, prisoners by the tens of thousands. One more stroke -and all would be over! Prince Ruprecht would be on the channel; the -Crown Prince would be in Paris!</p> - -<p>Ruth had seen German newspapers before and she had known of their -blatant distortions of truth, but she had never seen anything like -the vaunts of those days. These must have, she feared, much -foundation in fact. Visions of catastrophe to the British Fifth -Army, of the rout from the Hindenburg line almost to Amiens, and the -terrors of the retreat haunted her in her solitary days. Was it -possible that the English were completely crushed and that the -French were helpless? Possible that the American army, which now was -admitted to have arrived in some force, had proved so utterly unfit -for European warfare that the allies dared not send it into the -battle line?</p> - -<p>The few words spoken to her by the man who attended her boasted that -such were the facts. She thought of that front from Soissons to -Reims, where the French lay unaware, perhaps, that upon them was -soon to come the final, overwhelming attack. It must be in the last -stages of preparation, with the hundreds of thousands of reserve -troops secretly concentrated by night marches; with the thousands of -guns and millions of shells secreted and in place for another such -surprise attack to be delivered in some amazing, unforeseen manner -as that assault which two months ago swept over the plains of -Picardy and broke the English line. Perhaps already the attack was -begun; perhaps——</p> - -<p>Such terrors held her when she lay sleepless or only half drowsing -in the dark; they formed the background for more personal affrights -visualizing her own friends—Hubert and Milicent and Mrs. Mayhew, -French girls whom she had known, and many others. Most particularly -her terror dwelt upon Gerry Hull. She had ventured to inquire of the -Germans regarding his fate; at first they refused information, then -they told her he was dead, next that he was a prisoner; and they -even supplied her with a paragraph from one of their papers boasting -of the fact and making capital of his capture.</p> - -<p>He was in one of their camps, to be treated by the Germans—how? Her -dismay would dwell with him; then, suddenly considering her own -fate, she would sit up, stark, and grasping tight to the sides of -her cot. Her mother and her sisters in Onarga—would they ever know? -Cynthia Gail’s people—what, at last, would they learn?</p> - -<p>A sudden resounding shock, accompanied by a dull rolling sound, -vibrated through the air. A great gun was being tested somewhere -nearby, Ruth thought. No; they would not do that at night. Then it -was an explosion at the chemical works; something had gone wrong. -The shocks and the sounds increased. Also they drew nearer. Now -guns—small, staccato, barking guns—began firing; shells smashed high -in the air. Ruth had dragged her chair below her window and was -standing upon it. Ah! Now she could see the flashes and lights in -the sky; an air raid was on. There within sight—not a mile off—and -fighting, were allied machines! Transcendent exaltation intoxicated -her.</p> - -<div class='poetry-container'> - <div class='poetry'> - <div class='stanza'> - <div class='verse'>The bombs bursting in air!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>The stanza of the glorious song of her country sang in her soul with -full understanding of its great feeling. An American prisoner long -ago had written those wonderful words—written them, she remembered, -when lying a captive upon an enemy vessel and when fearing for the -fate of the fort manned by his people. But</p> - -<div class='poetry-container'> - <div class='poetry'> - <div class='stanza'> - <div class='verse'>... the rocket’s red glare,</div> - <div class='verse'>The bombs bursting in air,</div> - <div class='verse'>Gave proof through the night</div> - <div class='verse'>That our flag was still there.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>The burst of these bombs and the flash of these rockets brought the -same leaping glory to Ruth. Not far away in France her flag yet flew -high; her people yet battled, and boldly, defiantly, if they could -send here over German soil such a squadron of the air to this -attack. The bombs and the guns and the rockets continued.</p> - -<p>Sometimes they swept closer; but swiftly they retreated. Now the -motor clatter of a single airplane separated itself and became -louder than all the distant sound. This sound seemed to circle and -swoop over the <i>schloss</i>; and—Ruth swayed at the buffet of a -tremendous shock; she caught at the wall to steady herself; but the -wall, too, was quivering. A bomb had burst nearby; near enough, -indeed, to destroy some of the building, for through the tremors of -the detonation she heard the crash of falling walls, the yells and -screams of terror.</p> - -<p>Ruth, steadying herself, realized that this attack might mean her -destruction; but defiant triumph filled her. The airplane which was -circling the <i>schloss</i> was one of the allies; the booming clatter of -its motor as it returned was completing the panic throughout the -<i>schloss</i>. A new eruption vibrated the walls, blowing down stones, -timbers; the fury of its detonation battered her. The next might -bury her in the débris of these walls; but she sang—wildly, -tauntingly she sang <i>The Star-Spangled Banner</i>.</p> - -<p>The taunt brought no protest. Throughout the <i>schloss</i> now was -silence. She did not believe that all, or, indeed, many of the -occupants of the place had been killed. But she knew that all who -were alive were hiding in the cellars.</p> - -<p>The increasing roar of the airplane motor as the machine swept back -on its orbit of return struck through her pangs of awe at the -possible imminence of her annihilation; but through them she sang, -and this time the motor roar rose to its loudest and diminished -without the shock of another bomb.</p> - -<p>One had been dropped, perhaps, and had failed to explode, or the -pilot had found himself not quite in the position he had desired. -The diminuendo of his motor noise continued only for a few moments, -however; it altered to a crescendo, warning of the approach. But now -other sounds, closer and within the <i>schloss</i>, seized Ruth’s -attention.</p> - -<p>Her name echoing in the stone halls—“Ruth! Ruth Alden! Where are -you?”</p> - -<p>Was she mad? Was this a wild fantasy of her excitement, a result of -her long terror? Was this her failure to hold her reason at the -approach of fate? It seemed to be not merely her name, but Gerry’s -voice. She could not answer, but she could sing—sing <i>The -Star-Spangled Banner</i>——</p> - -<div class='poetry-container'> - <div class='poetry'> - <div class='stanza'> - <div class='verse'>And the rocket’s red glare,</div> - <div class='verse'>The bombs bursting in air——</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>Her voice seemed to guide the voices without. “Ruth! Ruth Alden! Are -you all right? We’re here!”</p> - -<p>“<i>Gave proof through the night</i>,” she sang, “<i>that the flag was -still there——</i>”</p> - -<p>Now voices—unmistakable voices—answered her; and she cried out to -guide them. Gerry called to her, his voice wondrous with triumph and -joy. He was there at the door of her cell; another man was with him; -a friend. They were working together with a bar to burst the lock; -the friend laughed loudly and was not afraid. Gerry did not laugh; -he spoke to her again and again, asking about her. She was well? She -was unhurt?</p> - -<div id='i002' class='mt01 mb01 wi002'> - <img src='images/illus-002.jpg' alt='' style='width:100%' /> - <p class='caption'>Gerry was there at the door of her cell; another man was with him; a friend</p> -</div> - -<p>Now they had the lock broken; the door open. Gerry seized her as she -came out; he kissed her; he picked her up and started to carry her, -while she cried to him that she was strong and could walk; could -run; could do anything now. Anything!</p> - -<p>The roar of the airplane continued overhead; and Ruth now knew the -trick. It was keeping the Germans below while Gerry and his -companion went through the <i>schloss</i>. Ruth did not yet have complete -comprehension of the event; she supposed that Gerry must have -escaped from Germany long before; that he had rejoined his squadron -and had come from the allied lines with the raiders that night.</p> - -<p>Now they were out of the <i>schloss</i> and Gerry was leading her over -soft ground—a field brightly lit by the moon.</p> - -<p>“Gerry, I’ve their plan!” Ruth cried to him. “On the front between -Soissons and Reims; their next attack! I know it....”</p> - -<p>He no longer was leading her. He lifted her and bundled her against -him, quite as he had done once so long before. An airplane was -approaching; she could hear the loud crescendo of its motor; -suddenly it ceased and she heard only the whir of the airscrew of a -machine about to land.</p> - -<p>Gerry was speaking to her, but for some reason she could not -understand what he was saying; she could hear his words, but they -were separate sort of words without meaning. He and Mike were -lifting her now and lowering her feet first into a pit—the seat pit -of an airplane. Mike stepped down into the pit with her and -supported her there. Gerry was gone from her now, but not far away. -He was in the pilot’s pit, or just behind it, with the pilot in -front of him. The motor was roaring again; the machine was moving; -it was rising. She was flying!</p> - -<p>Far—far below, when she looked back, she saw a strange sheen, which -was the moonlight on the ground, with a twisting, brighter strip -dividing it.</p> - -<p>“That,” she tried to say to the man holding her in his lap, “that’s -the Rhine?”</p> - -<p>He tried very hard to hear her, and she supposed that the same thing -must be the matter with him as was the trouble with her when Gerry -spoke to her on the ground. Only slowly she realized that she could -not even hear her own voice for the noise of the motor.</p> - -<p>She looked back to the other pit and saw Gerry’s face; he waved at -her and she waved back; then she sank upon the shoulder of the man -holding her, and she lost consciousness.</p> - -<p>Many times while that English bombing biplane—weighted now by three -men and a girl instead of by two men and bombs—made the journey to -the allied lines, Ruth stirred to semi-wakefulness. The swaying and -the rising and the falling of the airplane as it rode the currents -of the air made it seem to Ruth that she was upon a ship at sea—upon -the <i>Ribot</i>. At other times the motion seemed merely the buoyancy -following the sinking of sensations in a dream. Afterwards she -remembered sitting up, wide-eyed and collected in mind, and gazing -down upon the moonlit ground; but at the time these occasions gave -no reaction.</p> - -<p>She remembered that Gerry waved to her many times—every time she -turned. Complete consciousness returned to her, however, only when -she found herself no longer rising, and sinking, or swaying to right -and left, with all sound overwhelmed by motor noises. She was upon a -cot then; it was steady, and soft, and marvelously comfortable; and -extremely kind people were caring for her—one of them an American -girl.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Mayhew was there, and George Byrne, and others, who identified -her. Also, of course, there was Gerry. It was he who introduced to -her two strange officers—one French and one American—and it was -Gerry who said: “These are officers of our intelligence division, -Ruth. Tell them what you can; then everyone will leave you alone to -rest. Your work will be done.”</p> - -<p>So she told them, summoning all her strength to repeat everything -correctly and in detail; and when she had finished she answered -their questions for more than an hour. The next day again they -questioned her. The attack upon the Soissons-Reims front was not yet -begun, they told her. Did they believe her? she asked.</p> - -<p>It was not the business of the intelligence officers to express -either belief or incredulity; their task was simply to ascertain -what she knew, or believed that she knew; to check her recital over -with discovered facts about her; to add her reports to the others, -both confirming and conflicting; and to pass the report on.</p> - -<p>Ruth herself was passed on the next day and requisitioned by other -men. Then she was taken to Paris and was left, undisturbed by -further examinations, to rest in a bed in a little private room at -one of the hospitals. She could not quite determine, during those -first days that she was detained there, whether she was in fact -under a sort of observational arrest or whether the constant care -which she received was solely to promote the return of her strength.</p> - -<p>For a semi-collapse had come—collapse of only physical powers. Her -mind was ceaselessly active—too active, the doctor told her. -Sometimes at night she could not sleep, but demanded that she be -allowed to rise, and dress, and go to the intelligence officers, or -have them come to her, so she could tell them her whole story again -in a way they must believe.</p> - -<p>If she could only make them see how Adler had looked; if she could -make them hear how his voice had sounded when he had spoken of that -Soissons-Reims front, they would not doubt her at all. If she could -speak with Gerry Hull again, perhaps he could help make them believe -her. But Gerry Hull was with his squadron. Only women were about -Ruth now, and doctors, and wounded men. So, day after day, she was -kept in bed awaiting the attack which—as all the world knows—came on -the twenty-seventh of May and against the French on the front from -Soissons to Reims.</p> - -<p>The day the great assault began Ruth demanded to get up, and—it -seemed until that day that someone must have doubted her—at last she -was permitted to do as she pleased. So she returned to the Rue des -Saints Pères and to her old rooms with Milicent; she wore again the -khaki uniform which she had worn in Picardy; and, after reading the -communiques that night, she applied for active duty as an ambulance -driver.</p> - -<p>That day the Germans had swept the French, in one single rush, from -the Chemin des Dames; the enemy were over the Aisne. Back, back; -everywhere the French, as the British in Picardy, were driven back, -yielding guns by the hundred, prisoners by the tens of thousands. -The Boche were over the Vesle now; they had Fismes. God! Again they -were upon the Marne! Could nothing stop them? Still they were -rushing onward, a broken army before them.</p> - -<p>Ruth was in Paris, where talk of a sort which she had never heard in -France before was upon everyone’s lips. France had given all and the -Germans yet advanced. Their guns hourly roared louder. Four years -ago, to be sure, their guns were heard as plainly in the Paris -streets; four years ago the German field gray had come even closer; -four years ago the government had abandoned Paris and prepared, even -though Paris were taken, to fight and fight. But that was four years -ago and the French army was young and unspent; Britain, then, had -barely begun to come in. France had gathered all her strength, and, -in her mighty hour at the Marne, had hurled back the enemy, “saving” -Paris!</p> - -<p>What mockery was that memory this day! Here, after the four years -and the spending of French and British strength, the Germans were at -the gates again only more numerous and more confident than before.</p> - -<p>Ruth stayed alone in her room during a lone afternoon writing to -Cynthia Gail’s father and mother a full confession of all that she -had done. Her whole enterprise, so hopefully taken up, had failed, -she said. She related what she had tried to do; indeed, in defense -of herself, she related how she had succeeded in entering Germany -and in learning something of the German plan for the great drive -which was now overwhelming the world; but she had failed to bring -back any proof which was required to convince the army that the -information she had gained was dependable. So she felt that she had -played Cynthia Gail’s part for no gain; she had no great achievement -to offer Cynthia’s parents in recompense for the wrong which she had -done them.</p> - -<p>She sealed and posted this, and now, at last, wrote to her own -mother fully of what she had done. Again the despair of the day -seized her. She wandered the streets where men—men who had not been -in the fighting during the four years—were talking of the allies -taking up a new line south of Paris and holding on there somehow -until America was ready. But when such talk went about Ruth gazed at -the eyes of the French who had been through the years of battle; and -she knew that, if the Germans won now, the French could do no more.</p> - -<p>Ever increasing streams of the wounded were flowing back into Paris; -and through the capital began spreading the confusion of catastrophe -nearby. The mighty emergency made demand upon the services of those -refused only a few hours earlier; and Ruth left Paris that night -upon the driving seat of a small ambulance. The next morning—it was -the first of June—she was close to the guns and upon a road where -was retreat.</p> - -<p>Retreat? Well, two months ago in Picardy when the English had gone -back before the Germans, Ruth had heard such a concourse to the rear -called retreat; so she tried to call this retreat—this dazed, -unresisted departure of soldiers from before the enemy’s advance. -What made it worse, they were the French—the poilus whom she met. -The French! When the British had been broken in Picardy and fell -back, fighting so desperately, they had sacrificed themselves to -stay the enemy until the arrival of the French! When the French had -arrived the German advance was stopped; the French had been the -saviors! But here the French were going back; and the British could -not, in turn, come to save them.</p> - -<p>These poilus did not expect it; they had ceased, indeed, to expect -anything. For the first time, as the poilus looked at her, she saw -the awfulness of hopelessness in their eyes. Four years they had -fought from Maubeuge to the Marne; to the Aisne; in the Champagne -they had attacked and gained; at Verdun they had stood alone; this -year at Kemmel they had sacrificed themselves and held on only to -meet at last, and in spite of all, the overwhelming disaster.</p> - -<p>Ruth tried to cry a word or two of cheer when a man saw and saluted -her; but her cry choked in her throat. These men were spent; they -were fought out; beaten. And just behind them, at Château-Thierry, -whence they had fled, was the Prussian guard coming on with these -beaten men between them and Paris.</p> - -<p>Ruth sat, half dizzy, half sick, at the wheel of the little car, -forcing it forward by these beaten men when the road offered a -chance. She was maneuvering toward a crossroad; and as she -approached it she noticed the French no longer trudging to the rear; -they were halted now; and as Ruth passed them and reached the direct -road to Château-Thierry she found them lined up beside the road, -waiting. Officers were clearing the way farther down; and as someone -halted Ruth’s car she stood up and stared along the rise of ground -to the south.</p> - -<p>A sound was coming over, borne by the morning breeze—a sound of -singing in loud, confident, boasting notes. Three notes, they were, -three times repeated—the three notes which were blown on the bugles -in Berlin when the kaiser or princes of the royal house were coming; -three blatant, bragging notes which Ruth had learned a year before -to mean, “Over there!”</p> - -<div class='poetry-container'> - <div class='poetry'> - <div class='stanza'> - <div class='verse'>For the Yanks are coming; the Yanks are coming,</div> - <div class='verse'>The drums rum-tumming everywhere....</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>Ruth caught to the side of the ambulance and held on tight. American -voices; thousands of them! American men; American soldiers singing! -Americans coming into this battle—coming forward into this battle, -singing! Swinging! She could see them now as they wound about the -hill—see the sun flashing on their bayonets, and the fine, confident -swing—the American swing—of their ranks as they approached.</p> - -<div class='poetry-container'> - <div class='poetry'> - <div class='stanza'> - <div class='verse'>The Yanks are coming; the Yanks are coming...</div> - <div class='verse'>And we won’t go back till it’s over, over here!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>Ruth leaped up and screamed aloud with joy.</p> - -<p>“What is it, Mademoiselle?” one of the dazed poilus inquired.</p> - -<p>“The Americans are coming! Our men are here! Our Americans! <i>The -Yanks—the Yanks are coming!</i>” she shouted it in the rhythm of the -song.</p> - -<p>What had seized her that day upon the <i>Ribot</i> when she saw the -<i>Starke</i> come up and Gerry told her it was American; what had -thrilled through her that night she arrived in France; what had -stirred throughout her that morning near Mirevaux when the English -officer called out to her, “Good old America,” and she watched the -English march off to die; what had come when the French at last -arrived before Amiens; even that ecstasy of the bombs bursting over -Mannheim when she had sung <i>The Star-Spangled Banner</i> and Gerry Hull -had found her; all those together surged through her combined and -intensified a thousand-fold.</p> - -<p>And this came not to her alone. It had come, too, to the French—the -French who had been falling back in flight—yes, in flight, one could -say it now—knowing that the Americans were behind them, but -expecting nothing of those Americans. Why they had expected nothing, -they did not know. At this moment it was incredible that—only the -instant before—they had been in total despair.</p> - -<div class='poetry-container'> - <div class='poetry'> - <div class='stanza'> - <div class='verse'>The Yanks are coming; the Yanks are coming!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>They were marines who were coming; they were so close that Ruth -could see their uniforms; American marines, who marched past her -singing—swinging—on their way to kill and to die! For they were -going to kill—and to die. They knew it; that was why they sang as -they did; that was why they were so sure—so boastfully, absolutely -sure!</p> - -<div class='poetry-container'> - <div class='poetry'> - <div class='stanza'> - <div class='verse'>... send the word; send the word to beware!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>It was American; nothing else! No other men in the world could have -gone by so absolutely sure of themselves, singing—swinging—like -that. And oh, Ruth loved them! Her people; only a few, indeed, as -men were reckoned in this war; but such men! Still -singing—swinging—they swept by, drawing after them a vortex of the -French, who, a few moments before, had been abandoning the battle. -They were all past now, the Americans; oh, how few they had been to -face the German army with Paris and all the fate of France behind -them.</p> - -<p>A few miles on—it could not have been farther—the Americans met the -Germans; and what they did there in the woods near the tiny town of -Meaux came to Ruth in wonderful fashion. The battle, which each -hour—each moment through that terrible morning—had been steadily -coming nearer and nearer; the battle ceased to approach. There was -no doubt about it! The fighting, furious twice over and then more -furious, simply could not get closer. Now the battle was going back! -The marines—the American marines, sent in to stop the gap and hold -the Paris road—had not merely delayed the Prussian advance; they had -halted it and turned it back!</p> - -<p>That night Ruth learned a little of the miracle of the American -marines from one of the men who had fought. He had been brought -back, badly wounded, and for a time, while her ambulance was held -up, Ruth was able to administer to the man, and he talked to her.</p> - -<p>“Three miles, we threw ’em back, Miss! Not much, three miles, but in -the right direction. They asked us to delay ’em. Delay ’em; hell ... -excuse me, Miss.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, that’s all right,” Ruth cried. “Oh, that’s fine! Say it -again—our way!”</p> - -<p>“That’s all they asked us; to delay ’em. I was right near Wise”—Wise -was the lieutenant colonel—“when we got our orders. We was to get in -touch with the Germans and hold up their advance as long as we -could; and then retreat to a prepared position.</p> - -<p>“‘Retreat?’ Wise yelled. ‘Retreat? Hell! We’ve just come!’ Well, -Miss, we got in touch! Oh, we got in touch, all right; touched ’em -with bayonets and butts. They couldn’t like it. Couldn’t quite -believe at first; didn’t think it was true; so we had to prove it to -’em, you see. Three miles back toward Berlin; not much; but—you -admit—in the right direction.”</p> - -<p>“I admit it,” Ruth said; and—the boy was very badly hurt—she kissed -him before she climbed back to her seat.</p> - -<p>The next day, when she at last allowed herself to rest, she wrote a -letter to Gerry. She had no idea where he was; so she addressed him -in care of his old squadron. She had no definite notion of their -present relations; what he had said, or what she herself had said, -during and following their flight back to France, she simply did not -know; for during that time she had dreamed extreme, incredible -things, which, nevertheless, fastened themselves upon her with such -reality that she could not now separate, with any certainty, the -false from the true.</p> - -<p>That he had come for her, boldly, recklessly; that he and a -companion had succeeded in taking her from the <i>schloss</i> and -bringing her back with them were facts which might be the foundation -of—anything between Gerry and herself or of no more than had existed -before.</p> - -<p>Yet something—a good deal—had existed at the time they had parted on -the Rue des Saints-Pères before she went to Switzerland. That was -quite a lot to return to, and the only safe feeling to assume in him -was that which he had confessed to her there. So she wrote this day -chiefly of the marvel which she had seen—the miracle of the arrival -of the Americans, which, as the world already knew, had saved Paris.</p> - -<p>She received reply from him after two weeks—a brief yet intimate -note, telling her that her wonderful letter had welcomed him just -ten minutes ago, when he had returned from a patrol. He had only a -minute now; but he must reply at once.</p> - -<div class='bq'> -<p>I want to tell you, Ruth, that you have the right to feel that your -work contributed to the arrival of our marines at the right moment, -at the right place. You are familiar enough with war now to know -that troop dispositions must be made far ahead. Your information -was, of course, not the only warning to reach the general staff that -the attack was to come where it did. But I am now permitted to tell -you that your information was believed to be honest; therefore it -had weight, and its weight was sufficient undoubtedly to make our -command certain, a few hours earlier than they otherwise might have -been certain, of the direction of the German attack; and, throughout -the front, reserves were started to the threatened points a few -hours sooner. Yours ever,</p> -<div style='text-align:right; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom:0.5em'> - <div style='display:inline-block; text-align:left;'> - <div class='cbline'>Gerry.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>The day after Ruth received this the Germans started their attack of -the fifteenth of July; three days later the allied counter attack -was striking in full force and the armies of the German Crown Prince -were fighting for their lives against the French and Americans, to -get back out of the Marne “pocket.” Then, in the north, the English -struck and won their greatest victories. It was August; September, -and still, from Switzerland to the sea, the allies advanced; the -Germans went back. And still from across the sea, three hundred -thousand American soldiers arrived monthly.</p> - -</section> - -<section class='chapter'> - -<h2 class='nobreak' id='chXXII' title='“The War’s Over”'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER XXII</span><br /> - <span style='font-size:1.1em'>“THE WAR’S OVER”</span> -</h2> - -<p>Ruth was working in a canteen with the American army now—or, rather, -with one of the American armies. Her particular army occupied the -bending front about the St. Mihiel salient, east of Verdun. -Gerry—she heard of him frequently, but from him only when the -chances of the mails brought letters along the lines of the shifting -armies—Gerry was doing combat flying again with the American forces -operating farthest to the west. She was close behind an active -battle front again, as by secret night marches the American First -Army with its tanks and artillery concentrated on the south side of -the salient from Aprémont to Pont-à-Mousson.</p> - -<p>Ruth went about glowing with the glory of the gathering of the -fighting men of her people. Many times when she looked up at the -approach of a tall, alert figure in pilot’s uniform, her heart -halted with hope that Gerry had come among the flyers to aid in this -operation; then she heard, with final definiteness, that he was -still kept at his combat work farther west. The gathering of the -army, however, brought Hubert Lennon.</p> - -<p>Ruth had not seen him since March; and his manner of reappearance -was characteristic. On the evening of the eleventh of September, the -sense of the impending had reached the climax which forewarned of -immediate events; and the troops who were to go “over the top” at -some near hour, and also the support divisions which were to follow, -were being kept close to their commands. The canteen where Ruth was -working was deserted long before the usual time, and Ruth was busy -putting away dishes when someone entered and coughed, -apologetically, to attract her attention. She glanced up to see a -spare young man in the uniform of an ambulance driver and wearing -thick spectacles. His face was in the shadow, with only his glasses -glinting light until he took off his cap and said:</p> - -<p>“Hello, Miss Alden.”</p> - -<p>Ruth dropped the dish she was holding. “Hubert! I didn’t know how -much I’ve needed to see you!” And she thrust both her hands across -the counter and seized his hand and squeezed it.</p> - -<p>He flushed ruddy under his brown weather-beatenness, and she held -tighter to the hand he was timidly attempting to draw away—still her -shy, self-effacing Hubert. By hailing her by her own name, he had -informed her at once that he knew all about her; and he had not -assumed to replace his former familiar “Cynthia” with “Ruth.”</p> - -<p>“You—no one’s needed me,” he denied, more abashed by the warmness of -his welcome.</p> - -<p>“You frightened me about you at first, Hubert,” she scolded him, -“when you went away and—except for a couple of postcards—you never -sent me a word. Then I heard of you through other people——”</p> - -<p>“Gerry?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; Gerry or Mrs. Mayhew; and I found you were always all right.”</p> - -<p>He winced, and she reproached herself for not remembering how -terribly sensitive he was about not being in the combat forces. “I -certainly never expected you’d worry about me.”</p> - -<p>“But you’ve been wounded!” she cried, observing now as he shifted a -little that he moved as do those who have been hurt in the hip. -“Hubert, what was it and when?”</p> - -<p>“Air raid; that’s all. Might have got it in Paris—or London.”</p> - -<p>“Look at me; where and when?”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, field hospital near Fismes early in August. I’m quite -all right now.”</p> - -<p>Ruth’s eyes suddenly suffused. She had heard about that field -hospital and how the German flyers had bombed it again and again, -strewing death pitilessly, and how the attendants upon the wounded -had worked, reckless of themselves, in an inferno. “Hubert, you were -there?”</p> - -<p>“That was nothing to where you’ve been, I reckon.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve never thanked you,” Ruth replied, remembering, “for not -telling on me that time you caught me on the train from Bordeaux.”</p> - -<p>“How’d you know I caught you then?”</p> - -<p>Ruth told him. He looked down. “I was pretty sure on the <i>Ribot</i> -that you weren’t Cynthia, Miss Alden,” he said, “but I was -absolutely sure I wasn’t doing anything risky—to the country—in -keeping still. By the way, I’ve a letter from Cynthia’s people for -you.”</p> - -<p>He reached into a pocket and Ruth studied him, wonderingly. “How -long have you been here, Hubert?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, three or four days.”</p> - -<p>“How long have you known where I was?”</p> - -<p>He hesitated. “Why, almost all the time—except during the retreat in -March, and then when you were in Switzerland and in Germany—I’ve -known fairly well where you were.”</p> - -<p>“Why didn’t you come to me four days ago?”</p> - -<p>“Didn’t have this till today.” He produced a letter postmarked -Decatur, Illinois, and in the familiar handwriting of Cynthia Gail’s -father. “You see, after Gerry brought you back and everything was -out, I thought the only right thing—to you, Miss Alden, as well as -to them—was to write Cynthia’s people. I knew you would, of course, -but I thought you wouldn’t say, about yourself, what you should. So -I did it. Here’s what they say.”</p> - -<p>He handed the letter to her, and Ruth withdrew nearer a lamp to read -it. They were still quite alone in the corner of the canteen, and as -Ruth read the letter written by the father of the girl whose part -she had played, tears of gratitude and joy blinded her—gratitude not -alone to the noble-hearted man and woman in Decatur, but quite as -much to the friend who had written of her to them with such -understanding as to make possible this letter.</p> - -<p>She came back to him with tears running down her cheeks and she -seized his hand again. “Oh, Hubert, thank you; thank you! I don’t -think anything ever made me so happy in all my life.”</p> - -<p>“You know Byrne’s dead, do you?”</p> - -<p>“No! Is he? He died from that——”</p> - -<p>“Not from that, Miss Alden. He completely recovered. He was killed -cleanly leading his platoon in the fighting on the Vesle. He had -written Cynthia’s people about you forgiving you, you see.”</p> - -<p>Hubert turned to the door and opened it and gazed out through the -dark about the hills and woods where that night the hundreds of -thousands of Americans of the First Army lay. “Funny about us being -back here, isn’t it?” he said, with the reflective philosophy which -he was likely to employ when dismissing one subject. “I’ve been -thinking about it a lot these last days, seeing our fellows -everywhere—so awful many of them. Everyone of ’em—or their -fathers—came from this side first of all because they didn’t like -the way things were going in Europe, and they wanted to get away -from it. But they couldn’t get away from it by just leaving it. They -had to come back after all to settle the trouble. That’s an -interesting idea, when you think of it, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Ruth. “Hubert——”</p> - -<p>“How does Gerry feel about being an American now?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve not talked with Gerry for more than three months.”</p> - -<p>“Being an American,” Hubert mused, “being an American is some -privilege these days—even if you only drive an ambulance. To be -Gerry Hull now!” He gazed at Ruth, who looked away, but who could -not stop color suffusing her face under his challenge. He glanced -about the room and observed that they were quite alone.</p> - -<p>“I’ve wondered a good bit recently, Miss Alden,” he said in a queer, -repressed matter-of-fact way, “whether you might prefer—or might not -prefer—to have me tell you that I love you. You must know it, of -course; and since it’s a fact, sometimes it seemed that we might be -better friends hereafter if I just told you that fact. You know I’ve -not any silly idea that you could care for me. No; don’t please!” he -stopped her, when she attempted to speak. “We’ll not arrive anywhere -except by sticking to facts; we’re friends; may we ever be!”</p> - -<p>“O, we will be, Hubert!”</p> - -<p>“Then it is better that I’ve told you I love you.”</p> - -<p>“But you mustn’t!”</p> - -<p>“I can’t control that, Miss Alden.”</p> - -<p>“Mayn’t I be Ruth even now?”</p> - -<p>“Ruth, then; yes, I like that. Good night, Ruth.”</p> - -<p>“You must go? But tomorrow you’ll——”</p> - -<p>“Tomorrow no one knows where any one’ll be. But it’s been great to -see you again.”</p> - -<p>“And you, Hubert! Good night; good luck, and—thank you again a -thousand times.”</p> - -<p>He went; and on the morrow, as everyone knows, the American First -Army went “over the top,” and at night the St. Mihiel salient, which -had stuck like a Titanic thorn in the flank of France for four -years, was wiped out; the American guns in the next days engaged the -guns of the outer fortresses of Metz.</p> - -<p>In the stream of casualties, which was the American cost of the -victory, Hubert was swept to the rear. Ruth read his name cited in -the orders of a certain day for extraordinary coolness and devotion -in caring for the wounded under fire. He himself was wounded again -severely, and Ruth tried to visit him at the hospital to which he -was sent; but she was able only to learn that he was convalescing -and had been transferred to the south of France.</p> - -<p>She read, a little later, another familiar name—Sam Hilton. There -might be other Sam Hiltons in the army; on the other hand, she was -familiar enough with the swiftness with which the draft had cleared -out Class I in America, to be certain that the Sam Hilton for whom -she had worked in January must now be somewhere in the American -army, and the particular Sam Hilton who was mentioned was a corporal -in an Illinois regiment which had been most heavily engaged in the -desperate fighting in the forest of the Argonne. He was awarded—Ruth -read—the military medal for extraordinary bravery under fire and for -display of daring and initiative which enabled him to keep together -a small command after the officers were killed and finally to outwit -and capture a superior German force.</p> - -<p>Somehow it sounded like Sam Hilton to Ruth. “He got in the army and -got interested; that’s all,” she said to herself as she reread the -details. “He wouldn’t let anyone bluff him; and—yes, that sounds -just like Sam Hilton after he got interested.”</p> - -<p>This was late in the fall; the Argonne then was cleared; and by a -shift of the divisions who were pressing constantly after the -retreating Germans, Ruth found herself in the last week of October -attached to the American units fighting their way to Sedan. -Infantrymen of the Illinois regiment, which possessed the decorated -Sam Hilton, came into the canteen and Ruth asked about him. Everyone -seemed to know him. Yes, he came from Chicago, and had been in the -real estate business; he was in a battalion which recently had been -heavily engaged again, but now was in reserve and resting nearby.</p> - -<p>Ruth visited, upon the next afternoon, the little, just recaptured -French village about which the battalion was billeted; and right on -the main street she met—medal and all—Sam Hilton. He was seated -before a cottage and was very popular with and intent upon the -villagers gathered about; so Ruth had a good look at him before he -observed her. In his trim uniform and new chevrons—he was sergeant -now—he never looked “classier” in his life.</p> - -<p>He appeared to have appointed himself a committee of one to -investigate the experiences of the inhabitants of that village -during the four years of German occupation, and he had found an -interpreter—a French boy of thirteen or fourteen—who was putting -into rather precarious English the excited recitals of the peasants.</p> - -<p>Ruth approached when one series of translation was coming to an end, -and Sergeant Sam Hilton looked up and recognized her. “Why, hello; -you here, too, Miss Alden?”</p> - -<p>He had been long enough in France so that he was not really much -amazed to encounter anyone. “Come here and listen to what the Huns -been doing to these people, Miss Alden,” he invited her, after she -had replied to his greeting. “Say, do you know that’s the way they -been acting for four years? We’re a fine bunch, I should say, -letting that sort of stuff go on for three years and over before we -stepped in. What was the matter with our government, anyway—not -letting us know. I tell you——”</p> - -<p>It took him many minutes to express properly his indignation at the -tardiness of the American declaration of war. Yet certain features -of the situation enormously perplexed him.</p> - -<p>“What gets my goat,” he confessed, “is how we’re so blamed popular, -Miss Alden. We Americans are well liked—awful well liked, ain’t we?”</p> - -<p>“We certainly are,” Ruth agreed.</p> - -<p>“We’re liked not just as well as the English, far as I can see, but -better. Yes, better. That certainly gets my goat; out of it three -years; in it, one; and not really in it all of one yet; and -we’re—<i>top hole</i>. That’s a British expression, Miss Alden; means -absolutely <i>it</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Ruth; “I’ve heard it.”</p> - -<p>“Well, we’re that; <i>top hole</i>. How does it happen? What’ve we done -that others ain’t that makes them feel so about Americans over -here?”</p> - -<p>Ruth could not answer. She could only accept, at last, an invitation -to lunch with him the first time they met again in any city where -they had restaurants.</p> - -<p>The perplexity which Sam Hilton felt was being shared by many and -many another American in those days which swiftly were sweeping -toward the end of the war; and not least among the perplexed was -Gerry Hull.</p> - -<p>That strange morning had arrived upon which battle was to be entered -against the Germans, as usual, and to be continued until eleven -o’clock; after eleven was to be truce. Gerry was on patrol that -morning, flying a single-seater Spad in a formation which hovered -high in the morning sky to protect the photographic machines and the -fire-control airplanes which were going about their business as -usual over the German lines, taking pictures of the ground, and, by -wireless, guiding the fire of the American guns.</p> - -<p>The American guns were going it, loud and fast, and the German guns -were replying; they might halt at eleven, but no love was being lost -upon this last day.</p> - -<p>About the middle of the morning German combat planes appeared. Gerry -was among the first to sight them and dash forward. Seven or eight -American machines followed him; and for the swift seconds of the -first attack they kept somewhat to formation. Then all line was lost -in a diving, tumbling, looping, climbing, side-slipping maelstrom of -machines fighting three miles above the ground. Each pilot selected -a particular antagonist, and Gerry found himself circling out of the -mêlée while he maneuvered for position with a new triplane Fokker, -whose pilot appeared to have taken deep dislike for him.</p> - -<p>The German was a good flyer—an old hand in a new machine, Gerry -thought. At any rate, Gerry could obtain neither the position -directly above him or just behind him—“on the tail.” They fired at -each other several times passing, but that was no way to hit -anything. Several times, of course, they got widely separated—once -for an interval long enough to give Gerry chance to aid another -American who was being pressed by two Germans, and to send one of -the Germans down out of control. Then Gerry’s particular enemy -appeared and they were at it again.</p> - -<p>Gerry climbed better now and got above him; Gerry dived, and the -German, waiting just the right time, side-slipped and tumbled out -from underneath. Gerry checked his dive and got about behind him. -Gerry was coming upon him fast, behind, and just a trifle below—in -almost perfect firing position—when he saw the German look back and -hold up his hand. Gerry held his fire, and, coming up closer, he saw -the German jerk his hooded head and point groundward. Gerry gazed -down upon a stark and silent land.</p> - -<p>The spots of shells were gone. Where they had erupted and flung up -great billows of sand, and where their smoke had puffed and floated, -the surface lay bland and yellow under the morning sun. Truce had -come—truce which the German pilot in the Fokker alongside signalized -by wave of his hand. Gerry raised his hands from his gun lanyard, -and, a little dazedly, waved back, and he let the German steer away. -Gerry swung his own ship about, and, flying low over an anomalous -land of man-specks walking all about in the open, he shut off his -motor and came down in his airdrome.</p> - -<p>Silence—except for voices and motor noises—silence! And nothing -particular to do or to expect; nothing immediately threatening you; -death no longer probable. Truce!</p> - -<p>Gerry joined the celebrants; but soon he retreated to the refuge of -his quarters, where he was alone. It was rather confounding suddenly -to find yourself with the right to expect to live. To live! What -amazing impatience this morning aroused. He had leave to depart in -two hours to spend a week wherever he pleased; and while the minutes -dallied and dragged, he reread the last letter he had received from -Ruth, which had arrived four days ago. She had mentioned that she -expected to be sent to Paris, so Gerry found place upon the Paris -train; and, upon arriving in the city, he took a taxi to the Rue des -Saints Pères.</p> - -<p>The little French girl, who opened the door of the familiar -<i>pension</i>, said, yes, Mademoiselle Alden was in Paris and, also, at -that moment actually in her room. Gerry entered the parlor and sat -down; but he could not remain still while he waited. He arose and -went about staring vacantly at the pictures upon the walls, seeing -no one of them, but hearing every slightest sound in the house which -might mean that Mademoiselle Alden was coming downstairs. He heard -light footfalls upon the floor above, which, he decided, were hers -as she moved about, dressing; and he wondered what dress she was -putting on—the pretty yellow dress which she had worn at Mrs. -Corliss’ or the uniform she had worn upon the retreat from Mirevaux. -He liked her in both; he didn’t care which she wore, if she would -only come.</p> - -<p>He heard her step on the stair; he started to the door, impulsively. -But the little French girl might be about; so he drew back to the -center of the room and stood there until Ruth appeared. Then his -arms went out to her and, regardless of who might hear, he rushed to -her, calling her name.</p> - -<p>She was small and slender and round and with her face almost white -from some absurd uncertainty about him and with her eyes wide. She -wore neither the beautiful yellow gown nor the uniform but a simple -blue dress of the sort which girls wear in the morning when they go -out, or in the afternoon, but which they do not put on particularly -for an evening call. Gerry was not critical; he thought the dress -mightily became her; but it made her bewilderingly demure.</p> - -<p>“What is it, Ruth? You’re not glad I came right to you?”</p> - -<p>“Glad! Oh, Gerry, my soul’s been singing since I heard your voice -down here and I knew that you’d come and you’re safe; and the war’s -over!”</p> - -<p>He had her in his arms, her slight, vibrant figure close to him, her -eyes turned up to his. Gently—gently as upon that time when she -disengaged his fingers from his clasp of her shoulders—she raised -her hands and put them upon his breast and thrust him back. The -touch of her hands and the tenderness of her strength sent rills of -delight racing through him, but he did not understand them.</p> - -<p>“Ruth, I love you; can’t you love me?”</p> - -<p>“Love you!” Her eyes closed for a moment as though she no longer -dared to look at him. Her resistance to him had relaxed; now she -thrust back from him again; but he did not permit it. He overpowered -her, drawing her against him. So she opened her eyes.</p> - -<p>“The war’s over, Gerry.”</p> - -<p>“Thank God, Ruth!... I couldn’t let myself even dream of this -before, dearest.”</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t say that!”</p> - -<p>“Why not?”</p> - -<p>“We’ll all be going back soon, Gerry—those of us who’ve lived—back -to what we’ve been before. That’s why I kept you waiting so long. I -had to change to this.” She looked down at her dress and he released -her a little to glance down also, wonderingly.</p> - -<p>“Why? What about it, dear?”</p> - -<p>“It’s my own—the only thing of mine you’ve ever seen me in; I used -to wear this at the office where I worked. You know, I told you.”</p> - -<p>“I wondered why I loved you more than ever before, Ruth. Oh, silly -sweetheart! You think you’re going back to an office!” He laughed, -delightedly.</p> - -<p>“No; we must think the truth, Gerry. We’ve been moving in madness -through the war, my love!”</p> - -<p>“Ah! You’ve said that!”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t mean it! We mustn’t imagine that everything’s to be -changed for us just because we’ve met in war and——”</p> - -<p>“And you’ve saved me, Ruth!”</p> - -<p>“You saved me, too!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, we shan’t argue that, dear. But about not being changed—well -I’m changed incurably and forever, my love. I mean that! You’ve done -most of the changing too. Did you think you’d made me an American -only for duration of the war?”</p> - -<p>“But Gerry, we must think. You’ll go home and have all your -grandfather’s buildings and money and——”</p> - -<p>“You’ll have all, too, and me besides, dear—if you want me? Do you -suppose that all these months I haven’t been thinking, too? Do you -suppose I’d want you for a wife only in war? I want you, Ruth—and -I’ll need you even more, I think, to help me in the peace to come. -But that’s not why I’m here. I want you—you—now and forever! Can I -have you?”</p> - -<p>“You have me,” Ruth said. “And I—I have you!”</p> - -</section> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUTH OF THE U. S. 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