"You leave the doctor alone, and ease his mind," directed Granmar; "that's what he needs, sensitive as he is, and poetical too, poor fellow. You just shout in his ear that you'll pay that money, and you'll be surprised to see how it'll loosen his joints." Mrs. Guadagni surveyed the good old uncle for a moment. Then she bent over him and shouted in his ear, "I'll make you a hot fig-tart right away now, Patro, if you'll set up." As she finished these words Granmar threw her scaldino suddenly into the centre of the kitchen, where it broke with a crash upon the bricks. "He's going to get up," announced Prudence, triumphantly. "He isn't any such thing; 'twas the scaldino shook him," responded Granmar, in a loud, admonitory tone. "He'll never get up again in _this_ world unless you shout in his ear that you'll pay that money." And in truth Pietro was now more knotted than ever. At this moment the door opened and Jo Vanny came in. "Why, what's the matter with uncle?" he said, seeing the figure on the floor. He bent over him and tried to ease his position. "It's a stroke," said Granmar, in a soft voice. "It'll soon be over. Hush! leave him in peace. He's dying; Denza there, she did it." "They want me to pay the nine francs he has--lost," said Prudence. "Perhaps you have heard, Jo Vanny, that he has--lost nine francs that belonged to the Leoncinis? Nine whole francs." She looked at the lad, and he understood the look; for only the day before she had confided to him at last her long-cherished dream, and (as she had been sure he would) he had sympathized with it warmly. "I declare I wish I had even a franc!" he said, searching his pockets desperately; "but I've only got a cigarette. Will you try a cigarette, uncle?" he shouted in the heap's ear. "Don't you mock him," ordered Granmar (but Jo Vanny had been entirely in earnest). "He'll die soon, and Denza will be rid of him; that's what she wants. 'Twill be murder, of course; and he'll haunt us--he's always said he'd haunt somebody. But _I_ ain't long for this world, so I ain't disturbed. Heaven's waiting wide open for _me_." Jo Vanny looked a little frightened. He hesitated a moment, surveying the motionless Pietro; then he drew Prudence aside. "He's an awful wicked old man, and might really do it," he whispered; "'specially as you ain't a Catholic, mamma. I think you'd better give him the money if it'll stop him off; _I_ don't mind, but it would be bad for you if he should come rapping on your windows and showing corpse-lights in the garden by-and-by." Prudence brought her hands together sharply--a gesture of exasperation. "He ain't going to die any more than I am," she said. But she knew what life would be in that house with such a threat hanging over it, even though the execution were deferred to some vague future time. Angrily she left the room.