The end of her chase came so unexpectedly that her wits were completely scattered. Now that she was face to face with the tall soldier she had nothing to say for her presence there. What would he think of her? How could she explain her coming? She had undertaken the whole thing in such haste that she had not planned ahead. Now she knew that from the start she had understood that she must not explain how she came to be possessed of any information concerning him.
She felt a kind of responsible shame for her old playmate Harry Wainright, and a certain loyalty toward her own social set that prevented her from that, the only possible explanation that could make her coming justifiable. So, now in the brief interval before he had recognized them she must stage the next act, and she found herself unable to speak, her throat dry, her lips for the instant paralyzed. It was the jubilant little mother that stepped into the crisis and did the most natural thing in the world: "John! Oh John! It's really you! We've caught you!" she cried, and the troubled young soldier peering into the dusk to discover if here was a vehicle he might presume to commandeer to help him out of his predicament lifted startled eyes to the two faces in the car and strode forward, abandoning with a clang the wrench with which he had been working on the car.
"Mother!" he said, a shade of deep anxiety in his voice. "What is the matter? How came you to be here?"
"Why, I came after you," she said laughing like a girl. "We're going to see that you get to camp in time. We've made pretty good time so far. Jump in quick and we'll tell you the rest on the way. We mustn't waste time."
Cameron's startled gaze turned on Ruth now, and a great wonder and delight sprang up in his eyes. It was like the day when he went away on the train, only more so, and it brought a rich flush into Ruth's cheeks. As she felt the hot waves she was glad that she was sitting behind the light.
"What! You?" he breathed wonderingly. "But this is too much! And after the way I treated you!"
His mother looked wonderingly from one to the other: "Get in, John, quick. We mustn't lose a minute. Something might delay us later." It was plain she was deeply impressed with the necessity for the soldier not to be found wanting.