CHAPTER X
DEVOURING SUSPICION
She had been at the field hospital for a week. It seemed to RuthFielding at last as though she could not remain "holed up" like arabbit any longer.
At Clair she had been used to going out of the hospital when she likedand going anywhere she pleased. Here she found it was necessary tohave a pass even to step out of the hospital compound.
"And be careful where you walk, Miss Fielding," said Dr. Monteith, ashe signed her pass. "Do not go toward the battle front. If you do youmay be halted."
"Halted!" repeated Ruth, not quite understanding.
"And perhaps suspected," he said, nodding gravely. "Even your RedCross will not save you."
"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed the girl. "Is everybody suspected of spying?I think it has become a craze."
"We do not know whom to suspect," he said. "Our closest friends may beenemies. We cannot tell."
"But, Doctor Monteith, who are in this district save our soldiers andthe French inhabitants?" asked Ruth.
"True. But there may be a traitor among us. Indeed, it is believedthat there has been," and Ruth winced and looked away from him. "Asfor our allies here--well, all of them may not be above earning Germangold. And they would think it was not as though they were betrayingtheir own countrymen. There are only United States soldiers in thissector now, as you say, Miss Fielding."
"I cannot imagine people being so wicked," sighed the girl.
"No matter how it is done, or who does it, the enemy is gettinginformation about our troops and condition, as the last two attackshave proved. So take care where you go, Miss Fielding, and what youdo," he added earnestly.
She promised, and went away with her pass. It was late afternoon andher duties were over for the day. She would not be needed at thesupply hut until morning. And, indeed, the girl she was breaking inwas already mastering the details of the work. Ruth could soon go backto her own work at Clair.
She walked nimbly out of the compound gate, making sure that she wasfollowing a road that led away from the front. Nobody halted her.Indeed, she was soon passing through a little valley that seemed aspeaceful and quiet as though there was no such thing as war in theworld.
The path she followed was plainly but a farm track. It wound betweennarrow fields that had not been plowed the season before--not even bycannon-shot. Somehow the big shells had flown over this little valley.
The sun was setting, and the strip of western sky above the hills wastinged with his golden glories. Already pale twilight lay in thevalley. But in this latitude the twilight would long remain. She didnot hasten her steps, nor did she soon turn back toward the fieldhospital.
She saw a cottage half hidden behind a hedge of evergreens. It stoodin a small square of muddy garden. There was a figure at work in thispatch--the tall, stoop-shouldered figure of a man. He was diggingparsnips that had been left out for the frost to sweeten.
He used the mattock slowly and methodically. With the cottage as abackground, and the muddy bit of garden, the picture he made wastypical of the country and the people who inhabited it.
Suddenly she realized that she recognized the ragged blue smock and theold droop-brimmed hat he wore. It was Nicko, the chocolate vender.This must be his place of abode.
Ruth hesitated. She had felt some shrinking from the man before; nowshe realized she was afraid of him. He had not seen her and she stoodback and watched him.
Of a sudden another man appeared from around the corner of the cottage.Ruth was more than glad, then, that she had not shown herself. Sheturned to retrace her steps.
Then she looked again at this new figure in the picture. She almostspoke aloud in her amazement. The newcomer was dressed exactly asNicko was dressed--the same blue and ragged smock, shapeless trousers,wooden shoes, and with a hat the twin of the one the first Nicko wore.Indeed, it was a second Nicko who stood there in the bit of gardenbefore the laborer's cot.
But amazement and suspicion did not hold her to the spot for long. Shedid not wish to be discovered by the pair. She was confident now thatthere was something altogether wrong with Nicko the chocolatepeddler--and his double!
Out of view of the cottage she hurried her steps. Through the gloamingshe sped up the path in the valley toward the high-road on which facedthe hospital stockade.
Her thoughts were in a tangle of doubt. Yet one clear thread ofdetermination she held. She must give her confidence to somebody--shemust relate her suspicions to some person who was in authority.
Not the medical chief of staff at this field hospital. Nor did shewish to go to the commanding officer of this sector, whoever he mightbe. Indeed, she almost feared to talk with any American officer, forTom Cameron seemed to be entangled in this web of deceit and treacheryinto which she believed she had gained a look.
There was a man whom she could trust, however; one who would knowexactly what to do, she felt sure. And it would be his business toexamine into the mystery. The moment she returned to Clair Ruth wouldget into communication with this individual.
Thus thinking, she hurried on and had almost reached the highway whensomething made her look back. Not a sound; for even the sleepy birdshad stopped twittering and there was no rustle of night wind in thebare shrubbery about her.
But mysteriously she was forced to turn her head. She looked down thepath over which her feet had sped from the laborer's cot. There wassomething behind her!
Ruth did not scream. A form came up the track swiftly and at first shesaw it so indistinctly that she had no idea what it really was. Hadshe been spied by the men in the garden, and was one of them followingher?
She trembled so that she could not walk. She crouched back against thehedge, watching fearfully the on-rush of the phantom-like apparitioncoming so swiftly up the path.