“Give him a chance to rouse himself from his selfish apathy during these next weeks, and to win for himself something of a good name. Of course, when Oscar recovers, the whole truth must be told. Meantime it will rest between you and me; and we will see if there is not still something behind that lazy, self-seeking exterior. I fear we have spoiled Cyril, and that this is the outcome. But some men will rise to an emergency, who otherwise drift along with the current all too easily.” It was the father’s hope that the crisis they feared in the town would stir up Cyril to exertions and self-sacrifice, which would do something to obliterate the bitter remembrances of the past. Perhaps Mr. Tom forgot to bear in mind that whilst repentance for past sins may be a stepping-stone to better things, a concealed and unrepented act of wickedness is like a millstone about the neck, dragging the soul downwards, and raising a barrier between it and those promptings of the Spirit whereby alone men can rise to true nobility and self-forgetfulness. And now a time of stress and keen anxiety arose within the little town of Isingford. The epidemic was restricted to a certain area, and was easily traced to the defective drainage of that part of the town; but its victims were very many within that area; and there were several isolated cases, like Oscar’s, which, however, were generally traced to poison germs inhaled in the infested locality. Oscar did not appear at first to be very ill, and Sheila was quite certain that he was going to have it mildly, and would soon be better. The nurse was capable and kindly, and Oscar liked her. He always said he was comfortable, only too lazy to talk; and it was difficult to get him to take the food and medicine prescribed. He seemed to turn against everything except iced water, and yet they must keep the furnace going somehow. In the town doctors and nurses were hard at work, together with a band of amateur workers, hastily organised, who went round to the infected houses daily, bringing those things which the doctors had ordered for the poorer patients, and in cases where nurses were not to be had, performing little offices for the sick, which they could not otherwise have obtained.