Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/249

 "Yes; I took her passport and her identity—everything she had and was, Gerry. I became on noon of that day Cynthia Gail. That forenoon, I was Ruth Alden working for a real estate firm named Hilton Brothers in Chicago for twenty-five dollars a week. I wanted to tell you that—oh I wanted so much to tell you all about myself that afternoon when you asked how I happened to be at Mrs. Corliss' and could think and say such different things from the other people there."

"Why didn't you?"

She confused him, at first, as she had George Byrne; and she made Gerry suspicious, too, but with an impersonal challenge and distrust quite distinct from what Byrne's had been. The real Cynthia Gail, of course, had meant nothing to Gerry; he had known her only as Ruth had come to him. What he was concerned for was the cause for which and in which he had lived for four years—the cause which was protected and secured by passports and credentials and authentic identities and which was threatened by those who forged passports and appeared in the allied lines under names other than their own.

"I dared trust no one then—you almost last of all."

"With what?"

"The great plan which I dreamed I might carry out alone—a plan of going into Germany, Gerry, as a spy for America!"

"Ah! So that's the idea in Switzerland!"

"Yes. The chance came to me that morning within a few minutes after I spoke to you in the motor car on the street. You remember that?"