In a dress of black silk and crape, worn for Margery Upton, who had died the day after Christmas-Day, Lady Adela sat in this room near the crackling wood fire. January was wearing away. She leaned back in the great yellow armchair in listless apathy, her wasted hands lying on her lap, a warm cashmere shawl drawn round her, and two scarlet spots on her once blooming-cheeks. The low fever, that, as predicted by Lady Harriet weeks and weeks ago, she was fretting herself into, had all too surely attacked her. And she had not seemed in the least to care whether or not she died of it. "If I die, will my death be sudden?" she one day startled the Swiss doctor by asking him. "You will not die, you will get well," replied Monsieur Le Brun. "If you will only be reasonable, be it understood, and second our efforts to make you so, by wishing for it yourself," he added. "I do wish it," she murmured; though her tone was apathetical enough. "But I said to you, '_If_ I die,'--and I want the question answered, sir. Would there be time to send for any friends from England that I may wish to see?" "Ample time, miladi." "Harriet," she whispered to her sister that same night, "mind you send for Mr. Grubb when I get into that state that I cannot recover--if I do get into it. _Will you?_" "What next!" retorted Harriet. "Who says you will not recover?" "I could not die in peace without seeing my husband--without asking for his forgiveness," pleaded the poor invalid, bitter tears of regret for the past slowly coursing down her cheeks. "You will be sure to send in time, won't you, Harriet?" "Yes, yes, I promise it," answered Harriet, humouring the fancy; and she set herself to kiss and soothe her sister. Lady Harriet MacIvor, who resembled her mother more than any of the rest, both in person and quickness of temper, had been tart enough with Adela before the illness declared itself, freely avowing that she had no patience with people who fretted themselves ill; but when the fever had really come she became a tender and efficient nurse. The sickness and danger had passed--though of danger there had not perhaps been very much--and Adela was up again. With the passing, Lady Harriet resumed again her tendency to set the world and its pilgrims right, especially Adela. January was now drawing to a close. The fever had left her very weak. In fact, it had not yet wholly taken itself away. She would lie back in the large easy-chair, utterly inert, day after day, recalling dreams of the past. Thinking of the luxurious home she had lost, one that might have been all brightness; picturing what she would do to render it so, were the opportunity still hers.