Part 22 (1/2)
The girl paled visibly and shrank back into her seat. Ruth cried out, fearing the steering wheel would get away from Henriette.
”Oh! Did you see?” gasped the latter.
The white object had suddenly disappeared. It seemed to Ruth as though it had actually melted into thin air.
”That was the werwolf!” continued the French girl, and crossed herself.
”Oh, my dear Mademoiselle, something is sure now to happen-something very bad!”
CHAPTER XXII-THE COUNTESS AND HER DOG
RUTH FIELDING had almost instantly identified the swiftly moving object in the road as the same that she had seen weeks before while riding with Charlie Bragg toward Clair. And yet she could not admit as true the a.s.sertion made both by the ambulance driver and the excited French girl.
To recognize the quickly disappearing creature as a werwolf-the beast-form of a human being, sold irrevocably to the Powers of Darkness-was quite too much for a sane American girl like Ruth Fielding!
”Why, Henriette!” she cried, ”that is nothing but a dog.”
”A wolf, Mademoiselle. A werwolf, as I have told you. A very wicked thing.”
”There isn't such a thing,” declared Ruth bluntly. ”That was a dog-a white or a gray one. And of large size. I have seen it once before-perhaps twice,” Ruth added, remembering the glimpse she had caught of such a creature with Bessie at the chateau gate.
”Oh, it is such bad fortune to see it!” sighed Henriette.
”Don't be so childish,” Ruth adjured, brusquely. ”Nothing about that dog can hurt you. But I have an idea the poor creature may be doing the French cause harm.”
”Oh, Mademoiselle! You have heard the vile talk about the dear countess!” cried Henriette. ”It is not so. She is a brave and lovely lady. She gives her all for France. She would be filled with horror if she knew anybody connected her with the spies of _les Boches_.”
”I thought it was generally believed that she was an Alsatian _of the wrong kind_.”
”It is a wicked calumny,” Henriette declared earnestly. ”But I have heard the tale of the werwolf ever since I was a child-long before this dreadful war began.”
”Yes?”
”It was often seen racing through the country by night,” the girl declared earnestly. ”They say it comes from the chateau, and goes back to it. But that the lovely countess is a wicked one, and changes herself into a devouring wolf-ah, no, no, Mademoiselle! It is impossible!
”The werwolf comes and goes across the battle front, it is said. Indeed, it used to cross the old frontier into Germany in pre-war times. Why may not some wicked German woman change herself into a wolf and course the woods and fields at night? Why lay such a thing to the good Countess Marchand?”
Ruth saw that the girl was very much in earnest, and she cast no further doubt upon the occupant of the chateau, the towers of which had been in sight in the twilight for some few minutes. Henriette was now driving slowly and had not recovered from her fright. They came to a road which turned up the hill.
”Where does that track lead?” Ruth asked quickly.
”Past the gates of the chateau, Mademoiselle.”
”You say you will take me to the hospital at Clair before going home,”
Ruth urged. ”Can we not take this turn?”