Ruth of the U. S. A. (McClurg)/Chapter 14
"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 overcome 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!"