Cyril worked day and night. He had studied surgery in Paris in one of his long vacations, and had gone about among the London hospitals in order to be of use in cases of emergency. He was now a valuable aid to the overworked parish doctor and his pallid assistant. The disease had spread fast among the crowded tenements under the shadow of the great chemical factory. Those fumes of sulphur and oxalic acid which poisoned the air of heaven in this locality proved no antidote to the cholera poison. There had been a good many deaths already. Cyril hunted the parish officers to accomplish such sanitary improvements as might be effected on the spur of the moment; but the whole neighbourhood was a nest of rottenness. There was not a drain that did its duty, or a sewer that did not breathe forth pollution by day and night. The funeral bell sounded all day long, and the faces of the people were pale and worn with an ever-present fear. Emmanuel Joyce went on with his daily work, and his nightly studies. He wrote dismal verses about the cholera fiend and his victims, and was more than ever inclined to question the justice and benevolence of his Creator. ‘It isn’t for myself I’m afraid,’ he said to Cyril, who had scanty leisure now for literary discussions, but who looked in at Mrs. Joyce’s parlour once a day for five minutes’ friendly chat. ‘A man can die but once. I’m no more afraid of sudden death than a soldier is when he stands in his place in the ranks and knows that the next shot may be for him. But I can’t help feeling for the poor creatures round about--the mothers taken from their young children--the hard-working fathers carried off, and their little ones left to starve.’ ‘It is hard, I grant,’ said Cyril. ‘But there is some good in all evil things. This dreadful outbreak may arouse the corporation of Bridford from their wicked apathy. We shall have sanitary reform, perhaps, after this awful warning.’ ‘Ay, they’ll shut the stable door when the steed’s stolen,’ retorted Emmanuel, bitterly. A few days later a death occurred in the house in which the Joyces lived. Cyril found the widow sitting with her work in her lap--she whose needle was rarely idle--pale, and crying silently. ‘Oh, sir,’ she sighed, ‘my poor Emmanuel, my blessed, well-beloved son!’ ‘Dear Mrs. Joyce, is anything amiss with him? Is he ill?’ asked Cyril, alarmed. ‘No, sir--not yet. But oh, I am full of fear! The poor woman on the third floor--the young mother with the two children--you know--you were with her last night. She’s gone, sir. Only taken yesterday morning, and gone this afternoon. A clear case of Asiatic cholera, the doctor says. Who can tell if my boy may not be the next?’