"Perhaps I can get away from here, if you will help me. I have escaped being caught so far. I only ask you to bring me a little food. Tomorrow I shall be stronger."
Unconsciously Sally sighed. What fate had ever driven her forth into this undesired adventure?
She did not like to aid a runaway prisoner, nor did she wish him to meet the disagreeable end he had suggested through any act of hers.
Any other one of the Camp Fire girls, Sally believed, would have given the soldier a lecture on the high ideals of patriotism, or of meeting with proper fortitude whatever fate might overtake him. At least he would have been required to divulge his nationality, and if he were an enemy, of course there could be no hesitation in delivering him to justice.
However, Sally only found herself answering:
"Yes, I suppose I can manage to bring you something to eat once more. But I cannot say when I can get here without anyone's knowing, so you must stay where you can hear when I call. Afterwards you must promise me to go away. I don't know what I ought to do about you."
Sally had gone a few yards from the château when she glanced back an instant toward the old stone ruins. The atmosphere of the afternoon had changed, the sun was no longer shining and the château lay deep in shadow.
A cold wind was blowing across the desolate fields. Sally was not ordinarily impressionable, yet at this moment she felt a curious sense of foreboding.
A little tired and also because her attention was occupied with her recent experience, Sally did not choose her way over the rough countryside so carefully and therefore managed to take a much longer time for her return to the farm.
Now that the sun had disappeared, the countryside seemed to have grown depressingly desolate. In the gray afternoon light the blackened tree trunks which had been partly burned were stark and ugly.
Under ordinary circumstances Sally was particularly susceptible to physical discomfort, yet this afternoon she was too concerned over her problem to be more than vaguely disturbed by her surroundings.
One thought continually assailed her. Would it be possible to appear among the other girls looking and behaving as if nothing unusual had occurred? For Sally had an honest and profound conviction that she had no talent for deception. How could she realize that she belonged to the type of women with whom dissimulation is a fine art once the exigencies of a situation required it? She had come to one definite conclusion, she would not betray the presence of the runaway soldier in the château for at least another twenty-four hours. She would take him food the next day and he might have the opportunity to attempt an escape. In all probability he would soon be captured and punished, and this was doubtless the fate he deserved; nevertheless Sally was glad that, in a cowardly fashion, she would not be directly responsible.