Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/217

 day had made it more and more impossible to prepare for the sometime inevitable confession.

For confession to Cynthia's family must come if Ruth lived; but only—she prayed—after the war and after she had done such service that Cynthia's people could at least partially understand why she had tricked them. The best end of all, perhaps—and perhaps the most probable—was that Ruth should be killed; she would die, then, as Cynthia, and no one would challenge the dead. That was how Ruth dismissed the matter when the terror within clamored for answer. But she could not so dismiss it now.

Impulse seized her to flee and to hide. But, in the France of the war, she could not easily do that; nor could she slip off from Cynthia's identity and name without complete disaster. Anywhere she went—even if she desired to take lodgings in a different zone in Paris, or indeed if she was to dwell elsewhere in the same zone—she must present Cynthia's passport and continue as Cynthia. And other, and more conclusive reasons, controlled her.

Her sole justification for having become Cynthia Gail was her belief that she could go into Germany by aid of the German agents who would know her as Cynthia Gail. They could find her only if she went about Cynthia Gail's work and lived at the lodgings here.

Ruth was getting herself together during these moments of realization. She opened the bedroom door and called in Milicent.

Charles Gail had been gassed. Milicent had not seen him, but Lieutenant Byrne had visited him and repeated