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.
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