“And yet there may be those working in the guise of the Red Cross who betray their trust,” the woman added. “I hear of such.”
“Who are they? Where?” Ruth asked eagerly.
“It is said that at Lyse many of the supplies sent to the Red Cross from your great and charitable country, Mam’zelle, have been diverted to private dealers and sold to the citizens. Oh, our French people—some of them—are hungry for the very luxuries that the blessés should have. If they have money they will spend it freely if good things are to be bought.”
“At Lyse!” repeated Ruth. “Where I came from?”
“Fear not that suspicion rests on you, ma chère amie,” cooed the Frenchwoman. “Indeed, no person in the active service of the Red Cross at Lyse is suspected.”
“Nobody suspected in the supply department?” asked Ruth doubtfully.
“Oh, no! The skirts of all are clear, I understand.”
Ruth said no more, but she was vastly worried by what she had heard. What, really, had taken place at Lyse? If a conspiracy had been discovered for the robbing of the Red Cross Supply Department, were not Mrs. Mantel and Legrand and José engaged in it?
Yet it seemed that the woman in black was not suspected. Ruth tried to learn more of the particulars, but the matron of the Clair hospital did not appear to know more than she had already stated.
Ruth wrote to Clare Biggars immediately, asking about the rumored trouble in their department of the Red Cross at Lyse; but naturally there would be delay before she could receive a reply, even if the censor allowed the information to go through the mails.