Ruth was working in a canteen with the American army now--or, rather, with one of the American armies. Her particular army occupied the bending front about the St. Mihiel salient, east of Verdun. Gerry--she heard of him frequently, but from him only when the chances of the mails brought letters along the lines of the shifting armies--Gerry was doing combat flying again with the American forces operating farthest to the west. She was close behind an active battle front again, as by secret night marches the American First Army with its tanks and artillery concentrated on the south side of the salient from Aprémont to Pont-à-Mousson. Ruth went about glowing with the glory of the gathering of the fighting men of her people. Many times when she looked up at the approach of a tall, alert figure in pilot’s uniform, her heart halted with hope that Gerry had come among the flyers to aid in this operation; then she heard, with final definiteness, that he was still kept at his combat work farther west. The gathering of the army, however, brought Hubert Lennon. Ruth had not seen him since March; and his manner of reappearance was characteristic. On the evening of the eleventh of September, the sense of the impending had reached the climax which forewarned of immediate events; and the troops who were to go “over the top” at some near hour, and also the support divisions which were to follow, were being kept close to their commands. The canteen where Ruth was working was deserted long before the usual time, and Ruth was busy putting away dishes when someone entered and coughed, apologetically, to attract her attention. She glanced up to see a spare young man in the uniform of an ambulance driver and wearing thick spectacles. His face was in the shadow, with only his glasses glinting light until he took off his cap and said: “Hello, Miss Alden.” Ruth dropped the dish she was holding. “Hubert! I didn’t know how much I’ve needed to see you!” And she thrust both her hands across the counter and seized his hand and squeezed it. He flushed ruddy under his brown weather-beatenness, and she held tighter to the hand he was timidly attempting to draw away--still her shy, self-effacing Hubert. By hailing her by her own name, he had informed her at once that he knew all about her; and he had not assumed to replace his former familiar “Cynthia” with “Ruth.” “You--no one’s needed me,” he denied, more abashed by the warmness of his welcome. “You frightened me about you at first, Hubert,” she scolded him, “when you went away and--except for a couple of postcards--you never sent me a word. Then I heard of you through other people----” “Gerry?” “Yes; Gerry or Mrs. Mayhew; and I found you were always all right.” He winced, and she reproached herself for not remembering how terribly sensitive he was about not being in the combat forces. “I certainly never expected you’d worry about me.”