He had read the announcement of the child's birth in the newspapers,
and had rejoiced to find that Providence had sent a consolation to the
widow in her hour of desolation.
"She is like her father," he said, softly, after he had taken the child
in his arms, and pressed his shaggy moustache to her pure young brow."
Yes, the child is like my old comrade, Oswald Eversleigh. She has your
beauty, too, Lady Eversleigh, your dark eyes--those wonderful eyes,
which my friend loved to praise."
"I wish to heaven that he had never seen them!" exclaimed Honoria;
"they brought him only evil fortune--anguish--untimely death."
"Come, come!" cried the captain, cheerily; "this won't do. If the
workings of two villains brought about a breach between you and my poor
friend, and resulted in his untimely end, the sin rests on their guilty
heads, not on yours."
"And the sin shall not go unpunished even upon this earth!" exclaimed
Honoria, with intensity of feeling. "I only live for one purpose,
Captain Copplestone, and that is to strip the masks from the faces of
the two hypocrites and traitors, who, between them, compassed my
disgrace and my husband's death; and I implore you to aid me in the
carrying out of my purpose."
"How can I do that?" cried the captain. "When I begged you to let me
challenge that scoundrel, Carrington, and fight him--in spite of our
cowardly modern fashion, which has exploded duelling--you implored me
not to hazard my life.
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