At last Elizabeth paused. She drew a little nearer her father, and laid her hand upon the table beside him. "I want you to advise me;" she said; then, "What must I do?"
In the impossibility of any answer he felt a sudden rebound from the force of her words. "I don't see that there is anything for you to do, or for anybody," he said. "How can you act upon a thing that is purely an assumption, and not only that, but a thing so wicked that it is a cruelty to a man to imagine it about him? I can't believe that it's necessary to do anything, for I can't bring myself to feel as you do. Are you very sure that you have not fancied a part of this?"
"Father!" cried Elizabeth, "I wish I had, But look at it." And she went again over the grounds of her suspicions, giving with a clearness that he was proud of, the indications that she had seen of the bent of Edmonson's will and the evidences of his headstrong character, linking one trifling act or word to another, until she had welded a chain so strong that Mr. Royal felt a thrill run through him as he listened, for she awoke in him her own belief and something of her own anxiety to be doing. So that when she had finished, instead of repeating that it was not necessary to do anything, he asked whom she had thought of as the person to give the warning to Archdale.
She was about to speak, then checked herself, hesitated, and at last said, "I want you to advise me."
"Um!" said Mr. Royal, and was silent. He was somewhat disappointed that she, so powerful in statement, should have no suggestion to offer in a matter that puzzled him the more, the more he thought of it. Such a warning would not be easy to 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 full of resolution, but as if the necessity that she was facing disturbed her. Mr. Royal suddenly perceived that his daughter had not finished, that behind that expression there was, not a suggestion, indeed, but a decision. She had come to him, not for advice, but for approval; she knew what to do. Her plan would scarcely be one to meet the approval of people like Mrs. Eveleigh. But he recognized that the soul that was looking out from Elizabeth's fearless eyes had a high law of its own. And when his daughter spoke in this mood, Mr. Royal was reverent enough to listen.