Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/251

 "Ruth Alden! That fits you better somehow; and what you've been doing fits you better, too. But—" he realized suddenly that this was acknowledging belief in her—belief beyond his right to have faith in this girl who once on the boat had tried to save his life and who, upon the battle field, had saved him and at frightful risk to herself. But he was not thinking chiefly of that; he was thinking of their intimacies from the first and particularly of that day when, after she had saved him from the wreck of his machine, they had driven away from the battle together.

"Only two things have happened to me since I went on board the Ribot which you don't know all about," she was adding, "and which had any connection with the secret I was keeping from you. One was my meeting with De Trevenac. He stopped me on the street, supposing I was a German agent. He gave me the orders which I told you he gave to someone else."

"I was supposing," Gerry replied, "that the entire truth about De Trevenac was something like that."

"You know the entire truth about him now," Ruth said. "What I told you before I specifically said was not the entire truth."

Gerry winced a little as he turned toward her. "Don't think I'm holding that against you—if you're Ruth Alden, as you say. Only if you're German"

"German!" Ruth refused the word with a gasp. "Gerry, you can't believe that."

"What was the other episode?" he asked quickly; and now she told him about George Byrne; of her attempt to continue to deceive him; of his mistaking her for his love;