Mrs. Pynsent was Clara's watchful and most kind attendant; from her hands she received her medicines without a murmur, and forbore to agitate herself with asking questions, according to her expressed wish. Towards evening, however, fever again rose high, and Mrs. Pynsent felt that all hope was over, and that her patient must sink under its raging influence. Clara again demanded to see her father; and, from her excited state, Mrs. Pynsent deemed it prudent to acquiesce. Her exertions were the feverish and uncertain effects of a roused, though dying spirit, which would terminate fearfully and suddenly, when its strength should exhaust. When her father entered the chamber, Clara rose up in her bed, and extended her arms towards him. "Dear, good papa, you are come to see me"--her thoughts took another and more distressing direction; and her eyes, flashing with scorn, became gradually heavy and half-closed, as she spoke. "Look at poor Clara, wedded to riches, and see her state _now_! Where is she? Where is Lady Kerrison, of Ripley? Where is the mother who sacrificed her child, and why does she not come to look upon me? Let her look--I am here, struck down--dying!" A copious hemorrhage succeeded the last words, and Clara never more spoke. Before Dr. Darwin returned to Ripley, Lady Kerrison was gone to her rest. And this was the fate of Clara Wetheral! the young and beautiful Clara! Scarcely passed the bounds of childhood, her days were sacrificed to the false light of ambitious hope, which, like the delusive Will-o'-the-wisp, led her only into the darkest and most impassable paths. Like the Will-o'-the-wisp, it lured her on, and deserted her in her hour of need. Few and evil were the married days of Clara. Her maid disclosed, at the death of her mistress, the secrets of the dead. Clara had habituated herself to the fatal influence of laudanum, upon every dissention with her husband; and she had endeavoured to drown the remembrance of her error, in potent and destroying libations. Her father remembered that she had alluded to the baneful practice, on the morning of his last visit. Sir Foster Kerrison winked with more nervous rapidity than was his usual custom, when Mrs. Pynsent announced to him the death of his wife; but his mind appeared relieved by the knowledge that she would no more appear before him, to reproach and annoy. Mrs. Pynsent's remarks to Sir Foster, immediately after her announcement of the event, was either unheard or unheeded. "Now you have killed two wives, you be quiet, and don't bring a woman to Ripley again, for they can't live in peace here. I wonder how you had the face to marry at all; but your first wife's family shut you up, and hid your coat, that you mightn't be off on the wedding-day; and we all know how the second wife was managed, so you are a poor thing, in spite of your temper. When the girls marry you in spite of yourself, be quiet and temperate, like Bobby."