Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/100

 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.