"I should not say all this, if I were not anxious about your health," Aunt Mildred continued gravely. "You look well and brilliant at night, but your morning face sometimes frightens me; and you are woefully thin, a mere shadow. It is all very well for people to call you ethereal, but I don't want to see you wasting away." "There is nothing the matter. I was always thin. I have a little cough that sometimes worries me at night, but that has been much better since I came here." "You ought to take care of your health, Vera. You have a great responsibility." "How do you mean?" "Have you ever thought of those who have to come after you? Do you ever consider that your splendid fortune dies with you, and that your power to help those members of our family who need help--alas, too many of them--depends upon your enjoying a long life." "My dear aunt, I cannot promise to spin out a tedious existence in order to find money for poor relations." "That remark is not quite nice from you, Vera. You yourself began life as a poor relation." "I have not forgotten, and I have given my needy cousins a good deal of money since I have been rich; and, of course, I shall go on doing so." "As your aunt, and the most attached of all your own people, I must ask a delicate question, Vera. Have you made your will?" Lady Okehampton asked this question with such a thrilling awfulness, that it sounded like a sentence of death. "No, aunt. Why should I make a will? I have nothing to leave. You know I have only a life interest in the Provana estate." "Nothing to leave! But your accumulations? Your surplus income?" "I don't think I can have any surplus. Claude and I have spent money freely, at home and abroad; and I have given large sums for the foundation of a hospital in Rome, in memory of Mario and his daughter. Claude manages everything for me. I have never asked him whether there was any money left at the end of the year." "And of that colossal income--which you have enjoyed for five years--you have nothing left? It is horrible to think of. What mad waste, what incredible extravagance there must have been. You ought not to have left everything in Claude's hands. Such a careless, happy-go-lucky fellow ought never to have had the sole management of your immense income. It would make Signor Provana turn in his grave to know that his wealth has been wasted." "He would not care. We never cared for money." "Nothing left at the year's end, nothing of that stupendous wealth! It is monstrous!" "Don't agitate yourself, dear Aunt Mildred. There may have been a surplus every year. I never asked Claude whether there was or not. But I shall always be rich enough to help my poor relations." There was no time for further remonstrance. Aunt Mildred parted from her niece with more sighs than kisses, though those were many.