And that being so, what did anything else matter?
He lay gazing at her perfectly contented, till he fell asleep holding her hand in his.
That was the beginning of a steady if rather a slow recovery.

It was only natural indeed that Reuben should be long in regaining strength.

He had been through months of fatigue and arduous wearing toil, and the marvel was that when the distemper attacked him in his weakness and depression he had strength enough to throw it off.
As Mary Harmer said, it seemed sometimes as though those who went fearlessly amongst the plague stricken became gradually inoculated with the poison, and were thus able to rid themselves of it when it did attack them.

Reuben at least had soon thrown off his attack, and the state of weakness into which he had fallen was less the result of the plague than of his long and arduous labours before.
How he ever came to be in the pest house of Clerkenwell he never could altogether explain.

He remembered that business had called him out in a northwesterly direction; and he had a dim recollection of feeling a sick longing for a sight of the country once more, and of bending his steps further than he need, whilst he fancied he had entertained some notion of paying a visit to his aunt, and making sure that his brothers had safely reached her abode.