That night Ruth learned a little of the miracle of the American marines from one of the men who had fought. He had been brought back, badly wounded, and for a time, while her ambulance was held up, Ruth was able to administer to the man, and he talked to her.
“Three miles, we threw ’em back, Miss! Not much, three miles, but in the right direction. They asked us to delay ’em. Delay ’em; hell ... excuse me, Miss.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Ruth cried. “Oh, that’s fine! Say it again—our way!”
“That’s all they asked us; to delay ’em. I was right near Wise”—Wise was the lieutenant colonel—“when we got our orders. We was to get in touch with the Germans and hold up their advance as long as we could; and then retreat to a prepared position.
“‘Retreat?’ Wise yelled. ‘Retreat? Hell! We’ve just come!’ Well, Miss, we got in touch! Oh, we got in touch, all right; touched ’em with bayonets and butts. They couldn’t like it. Couldn’t quite believe at first; didn’t think it was true; so we had to prove it to ’em, you see. Three miles back toward Berlin; not much; but—you admit—in the right direction.”
“I admit it,” Ruth said; and—the boy was very badly hurt—she kissed him before she climbed back to her seat.
The next day, when she at last allowed herself to rest, she wrote a letter to Gerry. She had no idea where he was; so she addressed him in care of his old squadron. She had no definite notion of their present relations; what he had said, or what she herself had said, during and following their flight back to France, she simply did not know; for during that time she had dreamed extreme, incredible things, which, nevertheless, fastened themselves upon her with such reality that she could not now separate, with any certainty, the false from the true.
That he had come for her, boldly, recklessly; that he and a companion had succeeded in taking her from the schloss and bringing her back with them were facts which might be the foundation of—anything between Gerry and herself or of no more than had existed before.
Yet something—a good deal—had existed at the time they had parted on the Rue des Saints-Pères before she went to Switzerland. That was quite a lot to return to, and the only safe feeling to assume in him was that which he had confessed to her there. So she wrote this day chiefly of the marvel which she had seen—the miracle of the arrival of the Americans, which, as the world already knew, had saved Paris.
She received reply from him after two weeks—a brief yet intimate note, telling her that her wonderful letter had welcomed him just ten minutes ago, when he had returned from a patrol. He had only a minute now; but he must reply at once.