Part 19 (2/2)

In walking with Henriette Dupay, Ruth had seen the French girl kneel a moment at this junction of the two lanes, and whisper a prayer. Indeed, the American girl had followed her example, for she believed that G.o.d hears the reverent prayer wherever it is made. And Ruth had felt of late that she had much to pray for.

The voices of the two wrangling people suggested no wors.h.i.+p, however.

Nor were they kneeling at the wayside shrine. She saw them, at last, standing in the middle of the cross lane. One, she knew, had come down from the chateau.

Ruth saw that the woman was the heavy-faced creature whom she had once seen at the gateway of the chateau when riding past with Charlie Bragg.

This strange-looking old woman Charlie had said was a servant of the countess up at the chateau and that she was not a Frenchwoman. Indeed, the countess herself was not really French, but was Alsatian, and ”the wrong kind,” to use the chauffeur's expression.

The American girl caught a glimpse of the woman's face and then hid her own with her veil. But the man's countenance she did not behold until she had pa.s.sed the shrine and had looked back.

He had wheeled to look after Ruth. He was a small man and suddenly she saw, as he stepped out to trace her departure more clearly, that he was lame. He wore a heavy shoe on one foot with a thick and clumsy sole-such as the supposed Italian chef had worn coming over from America on the Red Cross s.h.i.+p.

Was it the man, Jose, suspected with Legrand and Mrs. Rose Mantel-all members of a band of conspirators pledged to rob the Red Cross? Ruth dared not halt for another glance at him. She pulled the veil further over her face and scuttled on up the lane toward the Dupay farmhouse.

CHAPTER XX-MANY THINGS HAPPEN

Ruth reached the farmhouse just as the family was sitting down to breakfast. The house and outbuildings of the Dupays were all connected, as is the way in this part of France. No sh.e.l.l had fallen near the buildings, which was very fortunate, indeed.

Henriette's father was a one-armed man. He had lost his left arm at the Marne, and had been honorably discharged, to go back to farming, in order to try to raise food for the army and for the suffering people of France. His two sons and his brothers were still away at the wars, so every child big enough to help, and the women of the family as well, aided in the farm work.

No petrol could be used to drive cars for pleasure; but Henriette sometimes had to go for supplies, or to carry things to market, or do other errands connected with the farm work. Ruth hoped that the French girl would be allowed to help her.

The hospitable Dupays insisted upon the American girl's sitting down to table with them. She was given a seat on the bench between Henriette and Jean, a lad of four, who looked shyly up at the visitor from under heavy brown lashes, and only played with his food.

It was not the usual French breakfast to which Ruth Fielding had become accustomed-coffee and bread, with possibly a little compote, or an egg.

There was meat on the table-a heavy meal, for it was to be followed by long hours of heavy labor.

”What brings you out so early after this awful night?” Henriette whispered to her visitor.

Ruth told her. She could eat but little, she was so anxious about Tom Cameron. She made it plain to the interested French girl just why she so desired to follow on to Lyse and learn if it really was Tom who had been wounded, as the message on the blood-stained envelope said.

”I might start along the road and trust to some ambulance overtaking me,” Ruth explained. ”But often there is a wounded man who can sit up riding on the seat with the driver-sometimes two. I could not take the place of such an unfortunate.”

”It would be much too far for you to walk, Mademoiselle,” said the mother, overhearing. ”We can surely help you.”

She spoke to her husband-a huge man, of whom Ruth stood rather in awe, he was so stern-looking and taciturn. But Henriette said he had been a ”laughing man” before his experience in the war. War had changed many people, this French girl said, nodding her head wisely.

”The venerable Countess Marchand,” pointing to the chateau on the hill, ”had been neighborly and kind until the war came. Now she shut herself away from all the neighbors, and if a body went to the chateau it was only to be confronted by old Bessie, who was the countess' housekeeper, and her only personal servant now.”

”Old Bessie,” Ruth judged, must be the hard-featured woman she had seen at the chateau gate and, on this particular morning, talking to the lame man at the wayside cross.

The American girl waited now in some trepidation for Dupay to speak. He seemed to consider the question of Ruth's getting to Lyse quite seriously for some time; then he said quietly that he saw no objection to Henriette taking the sacks of grain to M. Naubeck in the touring car body instead of the truck, and going to-day to Lyse on that errand instead of the next week.

It was settled so easily. Henriette ran away to dress, while a younger brother slipped out to see that the car was in order for the two girls.

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