“Where?” Ruth asked.
“I know some people, whom I can trust and who can take you in charge till I can talk to Hull. He’s the only reference you care to give?”
“Yes,” she said.
“If he stands for you, that won’t mean anything to me, I might as well tell you,” Byrne returned. “You’ve probably got him fooled; you could do it, all right, I guess.”
“Then what’s the use in your sending for him?”
“Oh; you think now there’s none? It was your idea, not mine.”
“I’ll go with you quietly to your friends,” Ruth decided, ending this argument. “I’ll understand that you’re going to communicate with Gerry Hull about me.”
She arose and Byrne seized her arm firmly. He blew out the candle and, still clasping her, he groped his way to the door. Some one stepped in the rubbish on the other side. They had been conscious, during their stay in the room, that many people had passed outside; once or twice, perhaps, a passer-by might have paused to gaze at the ruin; but Ruth had heard no one enter the house. Byrne had heard no one; for his grasp on Ruth’s arm tightened with a start of surprise as he realized that the someone who now suddenly moved on the other side of the door must have come there moments before.
Byrne stepped back, drawing Ruth with him, and thrusting her a little behind him. The person on the other side of the door was a watchman, perhaps, or the owner of this house or a neighbor investigating to what use these ruined rooms were now being put. Byrne, thinking thus, spoke loudly in labored French, “I am an American officer, with a companion, who has looked in here.”
“Very well,” came in French and in a man’s voice from the other side of the door. Byrne advanced to the door and opened it, therefore, and was going through when a bludgeon beat down upon him. Byrne reeled back, raising his left arm to shield off another blow; he tried to strike back with his left arm and grapple his assailant; but with his right, he still held to Ruth as though she would seize this chance to escape; and yet, at the same time, Ruth felt that he was protecting her with his body before hers.