“Why, Miss Fielding, you must not think of going over there!” he cried. “We need you here. If all our dependable women go to France, how shall we manage here?”
“You would manage very well,” Ruth told him. “This should be a training school for the work over there. I know that I can give any intelligent girl such an idea of my work in three weeks that you would never miss me.”
“Impossible, Miss Fielding!”
“Quite possible, I assure you. I want to go. I feel I can do more over there than I can here. A thousand girls who can’t go could be found to do what I do here. Approve my application, will you please, Mr. Mayo?”
He did this after some hesitation. “Am I going to lose everybody at once?” he grumbled.
“Why, only poor little me,” laughed Ruth Fielding.
“Yours is the seventh application I have O.K.’d. And several others may ask yet. The fire is spreading.”
“Oh! Who?”
“We are going to lose Mrs. Mantel for one. I understand that the Red Cross wants her for a much more important work in France.”
For a little while Ruth doubted after all if she so much desired to go to France. The fact that Mrs. Mantel was going came as a shock to her mind and made her hesitate. Suppose she should meet the woman in black over there? Suppose her work should be connected with that of the woman whom she so much suspected and disliked?