Questions crowded upon her which, she knew, must come to him. She had betrayed De Trevenac; but it was a known principle of the German spy organization that, at certain times and under certain circumstances, one agent would betray another. The Germans punished some of their spies in this way; in other cases, when a man was to be discarded who had ceased to be useful, another spy had been appointed to betray him for the advantage that the betrayal would bring to the informer.
Immediately after that betrayal, Ruth had gone to the precise districts concerning which the Germans had desired information preceding and during their attack and where results proved that spies must have been numerous and unsuspected. Gerry had commented upon this to Ruth during their retreat from Mirevaux; and when she replied, he had realized again that she was not in France doing “just relief work.” He had asked what else she was doing; she had evaded answer. Would he believe her answer now or only that part of it which George Byrne had believed?
She arose and went to the door and saw that it was firmly closed.
“Do you remember, Gerry,” she asked when she returned “that first time we talked together in Mrs. Corliss’ conservatory, that I said I woke up that morning trying to imagine myself knowing you—without the slightest hope that I ever could?”
“I remember you said something like that, Cynthia.”
“Did you ever wonder how that might be? I mean that I should have been invited to Mrs. Corliss’ and that same morning not imagine that I could meet you?”
“I suppose I thought Mrs. Corliss hadn’t called you till late,” Gerry said.
“She never called me, myself, at all. A girl—a strange girl, whom I had never seen—a girl named Cynthia Gail had been asked. But she had died before that day; so I came in her place.”
Gerry drew a little nearer intently. “Because your names were the same; you were related to her?”
“No; I wasn’t related to her at all; and our names were entirely different.”