There was one person to whom, in any ordinary trouble of mind, Sir
Oswald Eversleigh would have most certainly turned for consolation; and
that person was his old and tried friend, Captain Copplestone. But the
jealous doubts which racked his brain were not to be revealed, even to
this faithful friend. There was bitter humiliation in the thought of
opening those bleeding wounds which had so newly lacerated his heart.
If Captain Copplestone had been near his friend in the hour of his
trouble, he might, perhaps, have wrung the baronet's secret from him in
some unguarded moment; but within the last week the Captain had been
confined to his own apartments by a violent attack of gout; and except
a brief daily visit of inquiry, Sir Oswald had seen nothing of him.
He was very carefully tended, however, in his hours of suffering. Even
her own anxiety of mind did not render Lady Eversleigh forgetful of her
husband's invalid friend. Every day, and many times a day, the Captain
received some new evidence of her thoughtful care. It pleased her to do
this--apart from her natural inclination to be kind to the suffering
and friendless; for the soldier was her husband's valued friend, and in
testifying her respect for him, it seemed to her as if she were in some
manner proving her devotion to the husband from whom she had become so
mysteriously estranged.
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