Part 18 (2/2)

He asked this in atrocious French, but the sentinel finally understood him.

”I will inquire, Monsieur.”

”Never mind the inquiring business,” declared Charlie Bragg. ”I've got to be on my way. I _know_ she's here. Get this letter in to her, will you? We're taking 'em as far as Lyse now, old man. Nice long roll for these poor fellows who need major operations.”

He threw in his clutch again and the ambulance rocked away. Ruth left the window and ran down to the entrance hall. The sentinel was just coming up the steps with the note in his hand. Before Ruth reached the man she saw that the envelope was stained with blood!

”Oh! Is that for _me_?” the girl gasped, reaching out for it.

”Quite so, Mam'zelle,” and the man handed it to her with a polite gesture.

Ruth seized it, and, with only half-muttered thanks, ran back to her ward. Her heart beat so for a minute that she felt stifled. She could not imagine what the note could be, or what it was about.

Yet she had that intuitive feeling of disaster that portends great and overwhelming events. Her thought was of Tom-Tom Cameron! Who else would send her a letter from the direction of the battle line?

She sank into her chair by the shaded lamp behind the nurse's screen.

For a time she could not even look at the letter again, with its stain of blood so plain upon it!

Then she brought it into line with her vision and with the lamplight streaming upon it. The b.l.o.o.d.y finger marks half effaced something that was written upon the face of the envelope in a handwriting strange to Ruth.

”This was found in tunic pocket of an American-badly wounded-evacuated to L--. His identification tag lost, as his arm was torn off at elbow, and no tag around his neck.”

This brief statement was unsigned. Some kindly Red Cross worker, perhaps, had written it. Charlie Bragg must have known that the letter was addressed to Ruth and offered to bring it to her at Clair, the American on whom the letter was found having been unconscious.

The flap on the envelope had not been sealed. With trembling fingers the girl drew the paper forth. Yes! It was in Tom Cameron's handwriting, and it began: ”Dear Ruth Fielding.”

In his usual jovial style the letter proceeded. It had evidently been written just before Tom had been called to active duty in the trenches.

There were no American troops in the battle line, as yet, Ruth well knew. But their officers, in small squads, were being sent forward to learn what it meant to be in the trenches under fire.

And Tom had been caught in this sudden attack! Evacuated to Lyse! The field hospitals, as well as this one at Clair, were overcrowded. It was a long way to take wounded men to Lyse to be operated upon.

”Operated upon!” The thought made Ruth shudder. She turned sick and dizzy. Tom Cameron crippled and unconscious! An arm torn off! A cripple for the rest of his life!

She looked at the b.l.o.o.d.y fingerprints on the envelope. Tom's blood, perhaps.

He was being taken to Lyse, where n.o.body would know him and he would know n.o.body! Oh, why had it not been his fate to be brought to this hospital at Clair where Ruth was stationed?

There was a faint call from one of the patients. It occurred twice before the girl aroused to its significance.

She must put aside her personal fears and troubles. She was here to attend to the ward while the regular night nurse was engaged elsewhere.

Because Tom Cameron was wounded-perhaps dying-she could not neglect her duty here. She went quietly and brought a drink of cool water to the feverish and restless _blesse_ who had called.

CHAPTER XIX-AT THE WAYSIDE CROSS

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