give under the most favorable
circumstances. It would not be a pleasant task to tell a man that
another man had designs upon his life, and when such assertion had only
the proof of strong conviction and of evidence, trivial in its details,
strong only as a whole, it would be even hazardous to whisper a warning
to the person himself, liable to lead to complications and sure to be
met by incredulity and either ridicule or resentment. But here, where no
personal communication was to be had, the difficulties were a hundred
times greater. Circumstances made it especially awkward for either
Elizabeth or himself to put these suspicions into words. But to put them
upon paper with all the cumulative evidence needed to carry
conviction,--if conviction could indeed be conveyed without the
reiteration of words and the persuasiveness of the voice,--to do this
and send the paper adrift, to fall into Archdale's hands or not as the
fortunes of war should determine, perhaps to fall into other hands,--it
was impossible, for Elizabeth's sake it was impossible. "I don't see how
we can reach him," he said at last. "A letter wouldn't answer."

"No," she said, "he might never get it." Mr. Royal looked at her more
closely as she fixed her eyes upon him, flushing a little as she spoke
with the earnestness of her purpose.

"Well," he said musingly, "we certainly can't get at him in any other
way, and that one is uncertain and dangerous. Even the dispatches are
subject to the fortunes of war. I don't see what we can do, Elizabeth.
Do you?"

But even as he spoke, he refrained from what he was about to add,
turning his assertion into a question. For a change was coming over his
daughter; the power within her to rise to great occasions was in force
now. The conventionalities that were holding him in check were unfelt by
her; she had risen above them to that high ground where the intricacies
of life are resolved into absolute questions of right and wrong, and
where perfect simplicity of intention becomes a divine guide.

"Father, do you remember," she cried, "what I have cost him and Katie?
I must not be silent, and let them be separated more, a great deal, than
my foolish speech once seemed to do. He has gone where stray shots are
of everyday occurence, and nobody ever inquires into them. Apart from
this obligation, if we do nothing we shall be murderers." She locked her
fingers together as she spoke, not in nervous indecision, for her look
was