Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/213

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"HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN"
195

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.