"Can I see the doctor?"
"Ay, you can see him," he said; "he is cured now, and will soon be about again."
"Has he had the Plague, then?"
"That he has, but it is a week now since the watchman left."
Cyril went upstairs. The doctor was sitting, looking pale and thin, by the window.
"I am grieved indeed to hear that you have been ill, doctor," Cyril said; "had I known it I should have come a fortnight since, for I was strong enough to walk this distance then. I did indeed go out, but the streets had so sad an aspect that I shrank from stirring out again."
"Yes, I have had it," the doctor said. "Directly I felt it come on I followed your system exactly, but it had gone further with me than it had with you, and it was a week before I fairly drove the enemy out. I ordered sweating in every case, but, as you know, they seldom sent for me until too late, and it is rare that the system got a fair chance. However, in my case it was a complete success. Two of my servants died; they were taken when I was at my worst. Both were dead before I was told of it. The man you saw was the one who waited on me, and as I adopted all the same precautions you had taken with your man, he did not catch it, and it was only when he went downstairs one day and found the other two servants lying dead in the kitchen that he knew they had been ill."
"Mr. Wallace has gone, you will be sorry to hear, sir."
"I am sorry," the doctor said; "but no one was more fitted to die. He was a brave man and a true Christian, but he ran too many risks, and your news does not surprise me."
"The only other friends I have, Mr. Harvey and his wife, went out of town a month ago, taking with them their servant."