Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/370

 bering how terribly sensitive he was about not being in the combat forces. "I certainly never expected you'd worry about me."

"But you've been wounded!" she cried, observing now as he shifted a little that he moved as do those who have been hurt in the hip. "Hubert, what was it and when?"

"Air raid; that's all. Might have got it in Paris—or London."

"Look at me; where and when?"

"Well, then, field hospital near Fismes early in August. I'm quite all right now."

Ruth's eyes suddenly suffused. She had heard about that field hospital and how the German flyers had bombed it again and again, strewing death pitilessly, and how the attendants upon the wounded had worked, reckless of themselves, in an inferno. "Hubert, you were there?"

"That was nothing to where you've been, I reckon."

"I've never thanked you," Ruth replied, remembering, "for not telling on me that time you caught me on the train from Bordeaux."

"How'd you know I caught you then?"

Ruth told him. He looked down. "I was pretty sure on the Ribot that you weren't Cynthia, Miss Alden," he said, "but I was absolutely sure I wasn't doing anything risky—to the country—in keeping still. By the way, I've a letter from Cynthia's people for you."

He reached into a pocket and Ruth studied him, wonderingly. "How long have you been here, Hubert?"

"Oh, three or four days."

"How long have you known where I was?"

He hesitated. "Why, almost all the time—except