Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/201

 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.