Ruth had been obeying Fayal’s injunction to stay well back in the cavern; now, venturing to the bush, she found a paper package, within which was a chunk of blackish, hard bread and two boiled turnips. She thought, as she saw this food, that it had been Fayal’s perhaps; at least, it had been the ration of some prisoner or deported captive as ill fed, probably, as he. But she was ravenous; this had been given her, however little it could have been spared by the donor. She ate it all and was stronger. Fayal did not return that day; but during the night someone visited the cavern, for, when morning came, she found food. At night Fayal returned, and when he guided her out of the woods across fields and farms, she realized how essential were the precautions he had enjoined. He guided her half the night, and brought her to another concealment, where another French refugee took her in charge. She had become a passenger, she found, upon one of the “underground railways” in operation to conduct escaped prisoners across the frontiers; Fayal, having brought her safely over his section, said his adieu. “The next German attack is to come upon the French on the front between Reims and Soissons, remember, Fayal,” Ruth enjoined upon the man when parting with him. “If I fail to get through, you must try to send the word.” “Yes, Mademoiselle. But you must not fail. Good fortune, Mademoiselle, adieu!” “Good fortune, Fayal; a thousand thanks again; and--adieu!” Her new conductor led her on a few more miles that night; she laid up during the day; at night proceeded under a new guide. So she passed on from hiding place to hiding place, sometimes lying for days at a time--terrible, torturing delays, during which she dreamed of the Germans advancing over all that Reims-Soissons front and sweeping over the French armies as they had overwhelmed the British in Picardy. And she--she, if she might go on, could prevent them! Many times during the endless hours she lay alone waiting for her guide who did not appear, she crept out from her concealment, determined to force on; but always she learned the futility of attempting to proceed alone. She was following her sixth guide after Fayal, and it was upon the eleventh evening after her escape from Lauengratz, when suddenly she heard a rough challenge; German soldiers appeared across the path; others leaped up from the right and left; yet others were behind. Her guide instantly recognized that he had led her into a trap; and he fought, wildly, to try to save her. She fought, too. But they bayoneted him, and, upon their bayonets, they bore him back upon her. A soldier seized her; overpowered her, brutally, and she struggled no longer with hope to fight free, but only to destroy the papers which she still carried. So they pinioned her arms; they half stripped her in searching her; they took her papers, and leaving her guide dead upon the ground, they hurried her with them to their commandant.