Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/317

 were twenty kilometers away. The whole countryside has been warned to find you; but you have come these twenty, kilometers in spite of them."

He coughed and checked himself, a little guiltily, as she startled. "That is, Mademoiselle, if you are that American lady who had accompanied Hauptmann von Forstner."

"I am that one," Ruth admitted.

"Then, Mademoiselle, come immediately with me! No moment is to be lost!"

He went to the door of the shed and gazed cautiously about. Ruth arose and began brushing the straw from herself; sleep had restored her nerves, but not her strength, she found. She swayed when she stepped. She was completely at the mercy of this man, as she must have been in the power of whoever found her. But she did not distrust Fayal. His emaciation, his cough, and, more than those, his manner—the manner of a man who had been suffering indignities without letting himself become servile; and together with that, his concern and respect for a woman—seemed to Ruth beyond counterfeit.

"You require food, of course, Mademoiselle!" Fayal exclaimed in dismay. "And I have none!"

"I can follow you," Ruth assured.

"Then now, Mademoiselle!"

He stepped from the shed, and, motioning to her to imitate him, he slipped into the trees to the right. Evidently he considered her danger great; the peril to him, if caught aiding one who was attempting escape, must be as positive as her own; but the Frenchman was disregard-