"You know that Devil Corner Charlie Bragg drove you past the other night? The shells have torn that all to pieces. We have to go fully two miles around by another road to get to Clair. We don't pass Mother Gervaise's place any more."
Ruth looked at him sadly but questioningly.
"Do you believe that story they tell about one of our young officers having gone over to the enemy?" she asked.
Holdness flushed vividly. "I didn't know him. I've got no opinion on the matter, Miss Fielding," he said. "But somebody has mapped out the whole sector for the Huns—and it has cost lives, and ammunition. You can't blame folks for being suspicious."
The answer quenched her conversation. Ruth scarcely spoke again during the remainder of the journey.
They welcomed her in most friendly fashion at the Clair Hospital. But the first thing she did after depositing her bag in her cell was to go to the telegraph office and put before the military censor the following message addressed to the prefect of police at Lyse,
"Will you please communicate with M. Lafrane. I have something of importance to tell him."
She signed her name and occupation in full to this, and was finally assured that it would be sent. M. Lafrane was of the secret police, and Ruth Fielding had been in communication with him on a previous occasion.
Several days passed with no reply from her communication to the police. Nor did any news reach her from the field hospital where she had been engaged, nor from her friends at the front. Indeed, those working near the battle lines really know less of what is being done in this war than civilians in America, for instance.
Almost every night the guns thundered, and it was reported that the Americans were making sorties into the German lines and bearing back both prisoners and plunder. But just what was being accomplished Ruth Fielding had no means of knowing.