She was always busy; but so fell was the action of the plague poison, that her patients died daily, despite her utmost care, and she was constantly moving from house to house, sometimes leaving none alive behind her in a whole domicile.

A certain number recovered, and these she made shift to visit daily for a while; but her main work lay amongst the dying, whose friends too often left them in terror so soon as the fatal marks appeared which bespoke them sickening of the terrible distemper.
The Master Builder received this promise with gratitude, having heard gruesome stories of the evil practices of many of those who called themselves plague nurses, but who really sought their own gain, and often left the patient alone and untended in his agony, whilst they coolly ransacked the house from which the other inmates had often contrived to flee before it was shut up.
Frederick, utterly unnerved and overcome by the horror of the thing which had befallen him, looked already almost like one stricken to death.

His mother was striving to get him to swallow some of the medicines which were considered as valuable antidotes, and to sip at a cup of so-called plague water--a rather costly preparation much in vogue amongst the wealthier citizens at that time.

But the nausea of the horrible smell of the plague patient was still upon him, sickening him to the refusal of all medicine or food, and to Gertrude's eyes he looked as though he might well be smitten already.
Her father was the only person who had eyes to notice her approach, and he strode forward and took her by the hands as though to keep her away.
"Child, thou must not come here.

Thy brother has been in a terrible danger--half strangled by a creature raving in the delirium of the distemper.