During these ten days in which she had been nursing the epidemic had showed no signs of abatement. Sometimes for a couple of days the return of the fresh cases was suddenly diminished, and once when Jeannie went to the hospital at eight in the morning to take up her duties they told her that there had been no fresh cases reported since the night before. But on all these occasions the lull was only temporary, and in the next twelve hours there would perhaps be seventy more reported. She pictured the disease to herself like some hideous monster which would lie down to sleep for a few hours after one of its gigantic meals, and then, when the victims were digested, would rise up again and clutch at them with his hot hands. Once as she was leaving the hospital Dr. Maitland had called her into his consulting-room to ask her a question about one of her patients, and as she rose to go he had said: “Would you like to see what is the matter with all these people?” He pointed to a microscope which stood on the table, and Jeannie looked through it at the drop of water which was beneath the lenses. “There are a quantity of typhoid bacilli in that,” he said; “they are long and black, with one pointed end, rather like pencils.” He adjusted the light for her, and among the infinitesimal denizens of the water she saw five or six little dark lines seemingly as lifeless as the rest. She drew back with a shudder. “I thought of it as some terrible beast with claws and teeth,” she said; “but this is the more terrible.” Never before had she realized on what a hair-breadth path this precarious life of ours pursues its way. The strength and the wit and the beauty of man were slaves and puppets in the hands of this minute organism. A king on his throne mixes one day a little water with the wine in his golden cup, and with it one of these black pencils, invisible but to a high power of lens, and thereafter he ascends his throne no more, but another sits in his place, before whom they sing “God save the King.” And the father is but one among the uncounted dead. This afternoon, as she sat under the trees in the garden after her lunch, thoughts like these flitted bat-like through the gloomy chambers of the brain. How insignificant and insecure was life! It was like some ill-constructed clock which might stop any moment. And how mean and trivial were all its best aims. Here was she, with a fair average of birth and brains and heart, and life held for her no more heroic task than to wage war--and, oh, how hopelessly!--with an infinitesimal atom. The peace and sheltered security of Wroxton, the busy tranquility she had fashioned for herself here, were all knocked in the dust. Everything was at the mercy of the bacillus. Luckily for her peace of mind these unfruitful imaginings were interrupted by Pool. She did not hear his step on the soft grass, and his voice spoke before she knew he was there.