The tone was half jocose, half sullen. The visitor in silence led his horse over the step into the entrance, hung the bridle on a nail in the wall, closed the door and said to Alcide: “Take me to him.” He was a fair man, tall, slender and young. All the family gathered near to stare at him. “There is nothing to see, sir,” muttered Alcide. “He’s as good as dead.” “What doctor have you?” “There is no such thing in these parts for forty miles or more.” “Do you mean the Commune has no medical aid?” “Safe and sure, it hasn’t.” “Take me to him; I know something of medicine.” They were all silent, vaguely frightened and ashamed. The woman nudged Alcide. “Best take the gentleman upstairs to poor Nonno, though he’s past all help.” And she forced a little water into her eyes and gave a little sob. Alcide took the one light off the table and tramped up the steep rotten stair. “What a piece of work about a dead greybeard!” he muttered. “When they’re past labour they’re best gone. You don’t leave a sere tree standing to cumber the ground.” He pushed open a ricketty, worm-eaten door, and the feeble oil wick shed a dim flickering light on the miserable room, where all was silence. The steward took the lamp from him, and went up to the bed of sacking and dry leaves, of which the odours were foul as a dung-heap. On it lay a gaunt old man’s lifeless body. The old tree was down; it cumbered the soil no more. The steward examined the body. It was still warm, but life was extinct; the jaw had dropped; one clenched lean hand was knotted in the white beard. “You have let him die alone!” said the young man with indignation and horror. Alcide grinned, showing his strong white teeth. “Dying’s the only thing nobody grudges our doing,” he said with unabashed indifference. “What would you, sir? We work all day. We can’t wait on sick souls all night.” “May the measure you have served to your father be served to you by your sons!” “Thank you, sir. Thank you kindly,” answered Alcide, which is the peasant’s synonym for “I will pay you out for that before long.” “It is frightful! Incredible!” murmured the young man. “You knew he was dying, and you left him alone, without even a drop of water by his side!” “He had his coffin to keep him company,” said Alcide, with a gruesome grin. “Some have to go naked into the earth.” He pointed to a corner in which a box, roughly made from unplaned planks, was leaning against the wall. “Hush!” said the steward with authority. “Have you no sense of shame?--no feeling?--no remorse?” “I have done nothing wrong, sir,” said Alcide sullenly. “I didn’t kill him. Old age killed him.” “And neglect!” Alcide shrugged his shoulders. Whether you hindered or hastened the death of a man so aged and so useless could not matter much, he thought; the deceased was eighty-three years of age, and had long been a burden to everybody.