"You don't mean it's contagious ?" The doctor smiled gently and rubbed one hand against the other.

"That I couldn't say," he said.
"But---!" cried the Vicar, round-eyed.

"If it's _catching_--it--it affects _us!_" He made a stride up the road and turned about.
"I've just been there," he cried.

"Hadn't I better---?
I'll go home at once and have a bath and fumigate my clothes." The doctor regarded his retreating back for a moment, and then turned about and went towards his own house....
But on the way he reflected that one case had been in the village a month without any one catching the disease, and after a pause of hesitation decided to be as brave as a doctor should be and take the risks like a man.
And indeed he was well advised by his second thoughts.

Growth was the last thing that could ever happen to him again.