Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/360

 fession of all that she had done. Her whole enterprise, so hopefully taken up, had failed, she said. She related what she had tried to do; indeed, in defense of herself, she related how she had succeeded in entering Germany and in learning something of the German plan for the great drive which was now overwhelming the world; but she had failed to bring back any proof which was required to convince the army that the information she had gained was dependable. So she felt that she had played Cynthia Gail's part for no gain; she had no great achievement to offer Cynthia's parents in recompense for the wrong which she had done them.

She sealed and posted this, and now, at last, wrote to her own mother fully of what she had done. Again the despair of the day seized her. She wandered the streets where men—men who had not been in the fighting during the four years—were talking of the allies taking up a new line south of Paris and holding on there somehow until America was ready. But when such talk went about Ruth gazed at the eyes of the French who had been through the years of battle; and she knew that, if the Germans won now, the French could do no more.

Ever increasing streams of the wounded were flowing back into Paris; and through the capital began spreading the confusion of catastrophe nearby. The mighty emergency made demand upon the services of those refused only a few hours earlier; and Ruth left Paris that night upon the driving seat of a small ambulance. The next morning—it was the first of June—she was close to the guns and upon a road where was retreat.

Retreat? Well, two months ago in Picardy when the