“I may--I don’t know! God help you and me, Ruth Alden, I don’t know yet--I may have to give part of the evidence which will accuse you! But though I do--and after I’ve done it--you must know that I’ll be fighting for you, believing in spite of facts which I may be bound to witness, that you somehow are all right. I’ll be trying to save you. I suppose that sounds mad to you; but it’s true.” “It doesn’t sound mad to me.” “In the other case,” he went on, “in case I can decide honestly with myself that you cannot possibly be doing anything one jot to threaten our cause, and in case Byrne has died or does not speak, then probably you will be passed on to Switzerland and you’ll try to go into Germany.” Ruth waited without reply. “Do you see what you’re putting up to me? You’re making me either accuse you to the French and cause you to be imprisoned and tried; or, if I believe and let them believe that you’re American, I must know that I’m sending you on into Germany to face a German firing squad. For they’ll shoot you down, as they did Edith Cavell, when they catch you; and they’ll catch you! You haven’t a chance and you know it! So give it up--give it up, I say! Go tomorrow and cancel your request; go home or stay here and work only as you have been doing.” “And when I’m taking my train of refugees out of the villages in the next zone where they strike, know again that I might have done some bit to prevent it and--I was afraid? What can you think of me? Do you think I could have done all that I’ve told you I have just for the sake of working here in Paris? Do you think I could see death come to so many and care how it comes to me?” “It’s not just death,” Gerry said, quivering as he gazed down at her. “If I could be sure they’d just kill you, it might be easier to leave your affairs to you. Who owns the right to refuse another his way to die? But you’re a girl. At first when they may think you one of themselves, you may be safe; but then they’ll discover you. A man--or what passes in Germany for a man--probably will find you out. He----” Gerry could say no more; for a moment his resistance to himself broke and his hands seized her. “They shan’t!” he denied to her fiercely. “They shan’t!” Gently she raised a hand and, as she had upon that occasion before, she loosened the grasp of his fingers. “You’re not to think about what could happen to me; you must think only of what I may do, Gerry,” she said. He released her, as he had before; but this time he caught the fingers which opposed his; he bent quickly and, carrying her hand to his lips, he kissed it. He drew back from her then; and she closed her other hand over the fingers which he had kissed and, so holding, she stood gazing up at him under lashes wet with tears.