So Ruth went early that morning to the United States Consul General with her passport which long ago had been substituted for that ruined passport of Cynthia Gail’s; and she offered it for _visé_, asking permission to leave Paris and France for a visit to the neutral country of Switzerland, and, more particularly, to Lucerne. She stated that the object of her journey was rest and recuperation; she knew that, not infrequently in the recent months, American girls who had been working near the war zones had been permitted vacations in Switzerland; but she found that times were different now. She encountered no expressed suspicion and no discourtesy; she simply was informed that in the present crisis it was impossible to act immediately upon such requests. Her application would be filed and passed upon in due time; and a clerk questioned Ruth concerning the war service which she had rendered which was supposed to have so exhausted her that she desired rest in Switzerland. Ruth, hot with shame, perforce related what she had been through in the retreat. She was quite aware when she went away and returned to her work that her application for permission to go to Switzerland would be the most damning evidence against her, when Byrne should bring his accusation; and now, having made application, she could do nothing but wait where she was. However, she heard nothing from Byrne or from the authorities upon that day nor upon the succeeding days of the week during which she worked, as she had when she first came to Paris, in the offices of the relief society; upon almost every afternoon she visited Charles Gail who was slowly sinking. After three days and then after a wait of three more, she revisited the consulate and inquired about her _permission_ for Switzerland; but she got no satisfaction either time. But when at last the week wore out and she met no interference with her ordinary comings and goings, she was beginning to doubt her beliefs that George Byrne lived; he must have died, she thought, and without having been able to communicate his knowledge of her to anyone. Then one night she was returning to the Rue des Saints Pères a little later than usual; the mild, April afternoon had dimmed to twilight and, as she passed the point where George Byrne had encountered her, fears possessed her again; they lessened only to increase once more, as they now had formed a habit of doing, when she approached the _pension_. “Letters for me, Fanchette?” she said to the daughter of her landlady who was at the door when Ruth came in. “No letters, Mademoiselle; but Monsieur le Lieutenant!” Ruth stopped stark. Many Messieurs les Lieutenants and men of other ranks called at the _pension_ for Milicent or for Ruth, just for an evening’s entertainment; but such did not appear at this hour. “He is in the salon, Mademoiselle.”