"Better for me to die than live," she murmured to herself, lifting her fevered hand. "I could have died happily, with his forgiveness on my lips. Whereas, to live is nothing but pain; weariness--and who knows how many years my life will last?" Darvy came in; a tumbler in her hand containing an egg beaten up with wine and milk. Darvy did not choose to abandon her mistress in her sickness and misfortunes, but Darvy considered herself the most ill-used lady's-maid that fate ever produced. Buried alive in this dismal place in a foreign country, where the companions with whom she consorted, the other domestics, spoke a language that was barbarous and unintelligible, Darvy wondered when it would end. "I don't want it," said Adela, turning away. "But Lady Harriet says you must take it, my lady. You'll never get your strength up, if you refuse nourishment." "I don't care to get my strength up. If you brought me some wine and water, Darvy, instead, I could take that. Or some tea--or lemonade. I am always thirsty." "And what good is there in tea or lemonade?" returned Darvy, who ventured to contend now as she never had when her lady was in health, coaxing her also sometimes as if she were a child. "Lady Harriet said if you would not take this from me, my lady, she should have to come herself. And she does not want to come; she's busy." To hear that Harriet was busy seemed something new. "What is she busy about?" languidly asked Adela. "Talking," answered Darvy. "Some English traveller has turned out of his way to call on her and Sir Sandy, my lady, and he is giving them all the home news." "Oh," was the indifferent comment of Lady Adela. Home news was nothing to her now. And, to put an end to Darvy's importunity, she drank the refreshment without further objection. Margery Upton had died and was buried; and her will, when it became known, created a nine-days' wonder in London. Amidst those assembled to hear its reading, the mourners, who had just returned from the churchyard, none was more utterly astonished than Mr. Grubb. Never in his whole life had such an idea--that he would be the inheritor of Court Netherleigh--occurred to him. Miss Upton's statement of why it was left to him, as explained by her by word of mouth to Mr. Cleveland, was read out after the will; and Francis Grubb found a private letter, written by her to himself, put into his hand. Lord Acorn was similarly astonished. Intensely so. But, in his débonnaire manner, he carried it off with easy indifference, and did not let his mortification appear. Perhaps he had not in his heart felt so sure of Court Netherleigh as he had allowed the world to think: Miss Upton's warnings might not have been quite lost upon him. Failing himself, he would rather Francis Grubb had it than any one; there might be no trouble about those overdue bonds; though Lord Acorn, always sanguine, had not allowed himself to dream of such a catastrophe as this.