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 passerby 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.