"What word do you want?" growled Copplestone. "If I tell you the truth, you won't like it; and if I were to try to tell you a lie, egad! I think the syllables would choke me. It has been hard enough for me to keep patience while all those idiots have been babbling their unmeaning compliments; and now that they've gone away to laugh at you behind your back, you'd better let me follow their example, and not risk the chance of a quarrel with an old friend by speaking my mind." "You think me a fool, then, Copplestone?" "Why, what else can I think of you? If a man of fifty must needs go and marry a girl of nineteen, he can't expect to be thought a Solon." "Ah, Copplestone, when you have seen my wife, you will think differently." "Not a bit of it. The prettier she is, the more fool I shall think you; for there'll be so much the more certainty that she'll make your life miserable." "Here she comes!" said the baronet; "look at her before you judge her too severely, old friend, and let her face answer for her truth." The room in which the two men were standing opened into another and larger apartment, and through the open folding-doors Captain Copplestone saw Lady Eversleigh approaching. She was dressed in white--that pure, transparent muslin in which her husband loved best to see her--and one large natural rose was fastened amidst her dark hair. As she drew nearer to the baronet and his friend, the bluff old soldier's face softened. The introduction was made by Sir Oswald, and Honoria held out her hand with her brightest and most bewitching smile. "My husband has spoken of you very often, Captain Copplestone," she said; "and I feel as if we were old friends rather than strangers. I have pleasure in bidding welcome to all Sir Oswald's guests; but not such pleasure as I feel in welcoming you." The soldier extended his bronzed hand, and grasped the soft white fingers in a pressure that was something like that of an iron vice. He looked at Lady Eversleigh with a serio-comic expression of bewilderment, and looked from her to the baronet. "Well?" asked Sir Oswald, presently, when Honoria had left them. "Well, Oswald, if the truth must be told, I think you had some excuse for your folly. She is a beautiful creature; and if there is any faith to be put in the human countenance, she is as good as she is beautiful." The baronet grasped his friend's hand with a pressure that was more eloquent than words. He believed implicitly in the captain's powers of penetration, and this favourable judgment of the wife he adored filled him with gratitude. It was not that the faintest shadow of doubt obscured his own mind. He trusted her fully and unreservedly; but he wanted others to trust her also. * * * * *