It might have occasioned his entrance through the enemy"s lines. He was on secret service beyond the great bombarding German guns!
If this was so he was in extreme peril! But he was doing his duty!
Ruth"s heart throbbed to the thought--to _both_ thoughts! His dangerous work was not done yet. But it was very evident that he had means of knowing what went on upon this side of the line of battle.
The men recently flying over her head in the French air machine must be comrades of Tom"s in the secret mission which had carried that young fellow into the enemy"s country. The message she had received might be only one of several the flying men had dropped about Clair, and at the request of Tom Cameron, the latter hoping that at least one of them would reach Ruth"s hands.
The girl knew that American and French flying men often carried communications addressed to the German people into Germany, and dropped them in similar "bombs." One of the President"s addresses had been circulated through a part of Germany and Austria by this means.
She had a feeling, too, that the man who had thrown the message to her knew her. But Ruth could not imagine who he was. She might have believed it to be Tom Cameron himself; only she knew very well that Tom had not joined the air service.
The incident, however, heartened her. Whatever Tom was doing--no matter how perilous his situation--he had thought of her. She had an idea that the message had been written within a few hours.
She went on more cheerfully toward the Dupay farm. She arrived amidst a clamor of children and fowls, to find the adult members of the family gathered in the big living-room of the farmhouse instead of occupied, as usual, about the indoor and outdoor work. For the Dupays were no sluggards.
"Oh, Mademoiselle Ruth!" cried Henriette, and ran to meet her. The French girl"s plump cheeks were tear-streaked and Ruth instantly saw that not only the girl but the whole family was much disturbed.
"What has happened?" the American girl asked.
In these days of war almost any imaginable thing might happen.
"It is poor old Aunt Abelard!" Henriette exclaimed in her own tongue.
"She must remove from her old home at Nacon."
Ruth knew that the place was a little village (and villages can be small, indeed, in France) between Clair and the field hospital where she had herself been for a week, but on another road than that by which she had traveled.
"It is too near the battle line," she said to Henriette. "Don"t you think she should have moved long ago?"
"But the Germans left it intact," Henriette declared. "She is very comfortable there. She does not wish to leave. Oh, Mademoiselle Ruth!
could you not speak to some of your gr-r-reat, gr-r-reat, brave American officers and have it stopped?"
"Have _what_ stopped?" cried Ruth in amazement.
"Aunt Abelard"s removal."
"Are the Americans making her leave her home?"
"It is so!" Henriette declared.
"It is undoubtedly necessary then," returned Ruth gently.
"It is not understood. If she could remain there throughout the German invasion, and was undisturbed by our own army, why should these Americans plague her?"
Henriette spoke with some heat, and Ruth saw that her mother and the grandmother were listening. Their faces did not express their usual cheerful welcome with which Ruth had become familiar. Aunt Abelard"s trouble made a difference in their feeling toward the Americans, that was plain.
Nor was this to be wondered at. The French farmer is as deeply rooted in his soil as the great trees of the French forests. That is why their treatment by the German invader and the ruin of their farms have been so great a cross for them to shoulder.
Ruth learned that Aunt Abelard--an aunt of Farmer Dupay, and a widow--had lived upon her little place since her marriage over half a century before. Without her little garden and her small fields, and her cow and pig and chickens, she would scarcely know how to live. And to be uprooted and carried to some other place! It was unthinkable!
"It is fierce!" said Henriette in good American, having learned that much from Charlie Bragg.
"I am sure there must be good reason for it," Ruth said. "I will inquire. If there is any possibility of her remaining without being in danger----"
"What danger?" demanded Madame Dupay, clicking her tongue. "Do these countrymen of yours intend to let the Boches overrun our country again?
_Our_ poilus drove them back and kept them back."
Ruth saw she could say nothing to appease the rising wrath of the family. She was rather sorry she had chanced to come upon this day of ill-tidings.
"Of course she will come here?" she asked Henriette.
"Where else can she go?"
"Will your father go after her in the automobile?"
"What?" gasped Henriette. "That is of the devil"s concoction, so thinks poor Aunt Abelard. She will not ride in it. And my father is busy. Let the Yankees bring her--and her goods--if they desire to remove her from her own abode."
Ruth could say nothing to soothe either her little friend nor the other members of the family. They could not understand why Aunt Abelard must be removed from her place; nor did Ruth understand.
She was convinced, however, that there must be something of importance afoot in this sector, and that Aunt Abelard"s removal from her little cottage was a necessity. The American troops in France were not deliberately making enemies among the farming people.
Henriette walked for some distance toward the hospital when Ruth went back; but the French girl was gloomy and had little to say to her American friend.
When Ruth reached the hospital and was ascending to her cell at the back, the matron came hurrying through the corridor to meet her. She was plainly excited.
"Mademoiselle Fielding!" she cried. "You have a visitor. In the office. Go to him at once, my dear. It is Monsieur Lafrane."
CHAPTER XIII
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
Monsieur Lafrane Ruth could count as one of her friends. Not many months before she had enabled the secret service man to solve a criminal problem and arrest several of the criminals engaged in a conspiracy against the Red Cross.
She had not been sure that he would so quickly respond to her telegram to the elderly prefect of police at Lyse, who was likewise her friend and respectful admirer.
This secret agent was a lean man of dark complexion. His manner was cordial when he rose to greet her. She knew that he was a very busy man and that he had responded personally to her appeal because he took a deeper interest in her than in most people aside from those whose acts it was his duty to investigate.
They were alone in the small office of the hospital. He said crisply and in excellent English:
"Mademoiselle has need of me?"
"I have something to tell you, Monsieur--something that I think may be of importance. Yet, as we Americans say, I may be merely stirring up a mare"s nest."
"Ah, I understand the reference," he said, smiling. "Let me be the judge of the value of what you tell me, Mademoiselle. Proceed."
Swiftly she told him of her visit to the field hospital so much nearer the battle line than this quiet inst.i.tution at Clair, and, in addition, told him of Nicko, the chocolate peddler, and his dual appearance.