"'I dare not put it in words. I do not believe the chance will ever come. But I am unable to go and leave the chance changed into an impossibility.'
"'We are talking of what may be,' I said. 'But you do not suppose that she could follow you on my report of your words alone?'
"'I shall be too far off to speak them myself.'
"'You can write then,' I said.
"'Do you remember what the distances are, and the intervals of time that must pass between letter and letter? When should I write?'
"'Now—this evening. I am not thinking of such courtship as took place in the antediluvian days.'
"'I cannot write on such an utter uncertainty. I have not hope enough; although I cannot bear to leave the country without enlisting you to act for me.'
"'I shall reconsider the question of acting,' I said, 'if I have no credentials to produce. I cannot undertake to tell anything to Eleanor merely to give her pleasure—or merely to give her pain.'
"'Would you have me write to her here—now?' he asked.
"'Yes, I would,' I told him.