Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/319

 At night Fayal returned, and when he guided her out of the woods across fields and farms, she realized how essential were the precautions he had enjoined. He guided her half the night, and brought her to another concealment, where another French refugee took her in charge.

She had become a passenger, she found, upon one of the "underground railways" in operation to conduct escaped prisoners across the frontiers; Fayal, having brought her safely over his section, said his adieu.

"The next German attack is to come upon the French on the front between Reims and Soissons, remember, Fayal," Ruth enjoined upon the man when parting with him. "If I fail to get through, you must try to send the word."

"Yes, Mademoiselle. But you must not fail. Good fortune, Mademoiselle, adieu!"

"Good fortune, Fayal; a thousand thanks again; and—adieu!"

Her new conductor led her on a few more miles that night; she laid up during the day; at night proceeded under a new guide.

So she passed on from hiding place to hiding place, sometimes lying for days at a time—terrible, torturing delays, during which she dreamed of the Germans advancing over all that Reims-Soissons front and sweeping over the French armies as they had overwhelmed the British in Picardy. And she—she, if she might go on, could prevent them! Many times during the endless hours she lay alone waiting for her guide who did not appear, she crept out from her concealment, determined to force on; but