It was in this manner that word reached the officer prisoners at Villinstein that an American girl, who had entered Germany by way of Switzerland in an attempt to obtain military information, had been captured and had been taken to the _schloss_ belonging to von Fallenbosch, near Mannheim, fifty miles away. It was not known whether she had been executed or whether she still was living; indeed, it was not known whether she had been tried yet; or whether she was to be tried; and her identity--except that she was an American girl--also was a mystery. That is, it was unknown to the prisoner who brought in the news and to the others to whom he told it; but it was not a mystery to Gerry. He knew that the girl was Ruth Alden--that she had gone on with her plan and been caught. And the knowledge imbued him with furious dismay. He blamed himself as the cause of her being at the mercy of the enemy. He had seen no way past the dilemma which had confronted him in regard to her, except to make a negative report in regard to Ruth which--he had hoped--would both keep her free from trouble with the French authorities and prevent her gaining permission to leave France for Switzerland. He had learned, too late, that while he had accomplished the former end, he had failed in the latter. She had been allowed to proceed to Switzerland; then he was shot down and captured. It had been impossible, therefore, for him to seek further information of her fate; but he had her in his mind almost constantly. When he was by himself, in such isolation as Villinstein afforded, his thoughts dwelt upon her. He liked to review, half dreamily as he sat in a corner of a casemate with a book, all his hours with her and recall--or imagine--how she looked that first time she had spoken to him. The days upon the _Ribot_ had become, marvelously, days with her. Quite without his will--and certainly without his conscious intention--Agnes had less and less place in his recollections of the voyage. She was always there, of course; but his thought and his feelings did not of themselves restore to him hours with her. It was the same when he was talking over personal and home affairs with the men with whom he became best acquainted--with O’Malley and a Canadian captain named Lownes; when the Irishman spoke of the girl waiting for him and when Lownes--who was married--told of his wife, Gerry mentioned Ruth; and--yes--he boasted a bit of her. “I thought,” O’Malley said to him later, “that you were engaged to an English girl, the daughter of an earl or such.” Gerry colored a little. “We’ve been good friends; that’s all, Michael; never more than that. When we happened to go to America on the same boat, our papers over there tried to make more of it; and some of their stuff reached this side.”