This, indeed, seemed to be the fact when Ruth awoke from her sound sleep at mid-forenoon. She might not have aroused then had there not been an insistent tapping on the door.
"Ja? Herein!" exclaimed Ruth, not too sleepy to remember her German.
A broad face surmounted by a cap, then the woman—quite a motherly looking person—appeared. "I am to help the Fraulein dress," announced Frau Krause, smiling.
"If you will be so kind," the girl agreed.
What she had not noticed when she went to bed was an open trunk heaped with clothing—both for under and outer wear. The rich and "stuffy" gown was typically German, and so was the plumed hat.
Ruth was sitting, with her hat on, in the little dining-room of the cottage over her pot of substitute coffee, rye bread and schmierkäse, when a private and almost noiseless auto-car rolled up to the door. She went out and entered it quite alone, and they were out of the Marchand estate by a rear exit and on the highway to Merz before Ruth discovered that the capped and goggled chauffeur was none other than Count Allaire Marchand himself.
In a stretch of the road where there was no traffic and few houses in sight, he half turned in his seat and told Ruth in brisk, illuminating sentences what she was to do.
It sounded easy, providing she aroused no suspicion in the breasts of those whom she met. The supposed character of Captain von Brenner's sister would enable her to treat everybody in a distant and haughty manner.
"But be careful of your German, Fraulein," urged the count. "Make no error in your speech. Deny yourself to everybody until your brother appears. After your first outburst of anger and alarm, when you arrive at the hotel, retire to the rooms he engaged for you, and refuse to discuss the matter with anybody.
"It is, as you Americans say, one grand game of bluff. It can be carried through by no other means. Remember what I have told you to tell your brother. To-night at nine, or to-morrow night at nine, I will be in waiting with the car. This is absolutely all my brother and I can do for you."