and green in
the late afternoon sun. A little bell tinkles musically.

Below in the street some passing soldiers are singing. How fresh and
strong and beautiful their untrained voices are. I wonder if they are
off to the front, for each one carries a pack and a little tea-kettle
swung on his back and a wooden spoon stuck along the side of his leg in
his boot. Where will they be sent? Up north, to try and stem the German
advance? To Riga? Where? The Germans are still advancing. Something is
wrong somewhere. And still soldiers go to the front, singing. They are
thrown into the breach. I can't help but think of the fields of Russian
dead, unburied. Who has a chance to bury the dead on a retreat? There
is nothing "decent" in it. Yet they say the retreat is "orderly." I
wonder what that means?

At night when I try to sleep, I see the map of Russia as if it was
printed on my eyeballs. It is so big and black with a thin red line of
fire eating into it. America seems millions of miles away. I wish I
could touch you just for a minute. If I could only feel your arms about
me for one moment. The only way is not to think beyond this room and
this minute.

RUTH.

_August._

_Dearests:--_

Peter is here. Last night, about nine o'clock the door opened and he
rushed into the room. I got to my feet on impulse, and then tried to
brace myself and control my disordered reason, for, of course, I
believed myself delirious. He stopped by the door long enough to throw
down his suitcase, and in that instant I struggled fiercely to
disbelieve my eyes. I was fighting myself. My legs trembled. But when I
fell, his arms were around me, supporting me.

"Is it you? Is it you?" I don't know whether I said the words out loud
or not, but I remember feeling the muscle in Peter's shoulder and
wondering if I could have gone out of my head as much as _that_.

"What on earth has happened to you two?" he said at last.

"Let me sit down," I said, feeling suddenly very sick and faint, and a
black spot in front of my eyes expanded all at once and shut out the
swaying room.

"Why didn't you come to Bucharest?" he asked again.

"How white and thin you are. Isn't he, Marie?" I observed, the blackness
gone from my eyes.

"Please answer me. What is the matter? You both look sick."

"We are under arrest for espionage," Marie and I suddenly burst out in
chorus, and we both began ta