Ruth had no companion at all. She had to write to her own mother in Onarga, of course; and, after buying with cash an order for two thousand dollars, she sent it to her mother with a letter saying that she was assigned to a most wonderful work which was taking her abroad. She was not yet free to discuss the details; but her mother must trust her and know that she was doing a right and wise thing; and her mother must say nothing about it to anyone at all. It might keep her away for two years or more; so the people who were paying her expenses had forwarded her this money for home. Ruth wished her mother to send for her clothes and her trunk from the boarding house; Ruth would not need them. And if any inquiry came for Ruth from Hilton Brothers or elsewhere, Ruth had gone East to take a position. There was no use writing her at the old addresses; she would send an address later.
She knew her mother; and she knew that her mother was sure enough of her so that she would do as asked and not worry too much.
So upon that same afternoon, Ruth packed up Cynthia Gail’s things; and she wrote to Cynthia Gail’s parents and to Second Lieutenant George Byrne at Camp Grant, signing the name below the writing as Cynthia Gail had signed it upon her passport.
That passport was ceasing to be a mere possession and was soon to be put to use; so Ruth practiced long in signing the name. The description of Cynthia Gail as checked on the passport was almost faultless for herself; height, five feet six and a half inches; weight, 118 pounds; face, oval; eyes, blue; hair, yellow; and so with all the rest. The photograph of Cynthia Gail was pasted upon the passport and upon it was stamped the seal of the United States, as well as a red-ink stamping which went over the edge of the photograph upon the paper of the passport. It was very possible, Ruth thought, that the German girl for whom this passport was intended would have removed that picture of Cynthia Gail and substituted one of herself; to do that required an emboss seal of the United States, besides the rubber stamp of the red ink. Ruth did not doubt that the Germans possessed replicas of these and also the skill to forge the substitution. But she possessed neither.
Moreover, the photograph of Cynthia Gail seemed to Ruth even more like herself than it had at first. The difference was really more in expression than in the features themselves; and Ruth, consciously or unconsciously, had become more like that girl in the picture. She had, also, the identical dress in which the picture was taken. She determined to wear that when she presented the passport and risk the outcome. Her advantage so far had been that no one had particular reason to suspect her; she had fitted herself into the relations already arranged to take Cynthia Gail to France and they seemed capable, of their own momentum, to carry her on.
Hubert Lennon “looked by” again later in the afternoon and she asked him to tell his aunt that she was going away. He was much concerned and insistent upon doing what he could to aid her.
“Do you know when you’ll be sailing?” he asked.
“I hope next week,” she said.
“Could you possibly go on the Ribot?”
“Why on the Ribot?”