Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/232

 "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.