"Ay, so they say; but Monsieur Le Prun, who was a jealous curmudgeon, would not admit him; but he did allow the physician to see her (himself standing by), because he was always glad to have the use of any body's skill for nothing--which, more than any love he bore his poor wife, was the reason of his letting him prescribe for her. Well, of course, she could not send any message to her friends, nor tell how she was treated, for old Le Prun was at her bedside; but the physician saw that she was ill, and he said to the old miser--'Your wife can't walk, and she must have air; let her drive every day in your coach.' 'I have no such thing,' said old Le Prun. 'But you are rich,' said the physician, 'you can afford to buy one; and it is your duty to do so for your wife, who will die else.' 'Let her die, then, for me--the devil may send her a coach to ride in, as they say he sent me my money; but I'll not waste my gold on any such follies.' So the physician went away, disappointed and disgusted, and her poor cousin was not able to effect any good on her behalf; but it seems the words of Monsieur Le Prun did not fall quite to the ground--they were heard in the quarter to where they were directed. That evening closed in clouds, and before twelve o'clock at night, they say, there came on such another thunder-storm as never was heard in the neighborhood, before or since. Nothing but thunder, roaring and crashing, peal upon peal, till the old house shook and trembled to its very base; and the blue lightning glared at every window, and split along the pavement in streams of livid fire; and all this time the rain was beating straight down in an incessant and furious deluge." "And so, I suppose, the devil came in the midst of the tempest, and took him away bodily in a flash of lightning?"