“Spies can find meaning in your most innocent remarks,” Major Reed had warned them.

They couldn’t find seats together anyhow, so the girls rode in silence back to the camp. Quite a number of other nurses were coming back to the camp on the same bus, but Nancy was glad not to sit with any of them, for she wanted to think about what she would say to Captain Lewis.

When she went straight on to their room with Mabel, her friend said, “Thought you were going to report what you saw to Cap’n Lewis.”

“I didn’t want any of the others to see me going to her,” explained Nancy. “I’ll wait a few minutes till they’re all in their rooms. This thing is best kept under lid.”

“Sure. I agree with you.”

“Tini’s made enough enemies without adding suspicion to her troubles.”

When the halls were empty Nancy slipped downstairs. Miss Lewis’s bedroom was next to her office, but to her consternation she found all the lights out. She hesitated to wake her, yet didn’t want to wait till morning to make her revelations.

Over and over again she had been haunted by the idea that the train wreck might have been averted if those German-speaking passengers had been apprehended in time. Yet she still couldn’t see what she might have done about it. But this time she did know what to do, and she meant to do it.

She was still hesitating in the hall when she noticed a light in an office farther down, and heard men talking. Suddenly she recognized Major Reed’s hearty laughter. The hours they had worked together that night at the wreck had made him seem so human and likeable to Nancy, that their difference in station could never again be a barrier to understanding.

Eagerly she hurried toward his office. The door stood open. She paused in the doorway till her eyes came to rest on the major among the group of men.

“May I speak to you, Major Reed?” she asked. He glanced at her, surprised, then asked, “Anything wrong, Miss Dale?”

He crushed his cigarette into an ash tray before he moved toward the door.

“I meant to talk to Captain Lewis, but her lights were out,” Nancy explained, as she backed into the hall, indicating that their conversation must be private. “I must speak to someone.”

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