Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/371

 during the retreat in March, and then when you were in Switzerland and in Germany—I've known fairly well where you were."

"Why didn't you come to me four days ago?"

"Didn't have this till today." He produced a letter postmarked Decatur, Illinois, and in the familiar handwriting of Cynthia Gail's father. "You see, after Gerry brought you back and everything was out, I thought the only right thing—to you, Miss Alden, as well as to them—was to write Cynthia's people. I knew you would, of course, but I thought you wouldn't say, about yourself, what you should. So I did it. Here's what they say."

He handed the letter to her, and Ruth withdrew nearer a lamp to read it. They were still quite alone in the corner of the canteen, and as Ruth read the letter written by the father of the girl whose part she had played, tears of gratitude and joy blinded her—gratitude not alone to the noble-hearted man and woman in Decatur, but quite as much to the friend who had written of her to them with such understanding as to make possible this letter.

She came back to him with tears running down her cheeks and she seized his hand again. "Oh, Hubert, thank you, thank you! I don't think anything ever made me so happy in all my life."

"You know Byrne's dead, do you?"

"No! Is he? He died from that"

"Not from that, Miss Alden. He completely recovered. He was killed cleanly leading his platoon in the fighting on the Vesle. He had written Cynthia's people about you forgiving you, you see."

Hubert turned to the door and opened it and gazed out