Some solution concerning his lady-love there must be, and Caius neither forgot nor gave up his intention of probing the lives of these two to discover what he wished; but the foreboding that the discovery would work him no weal made it the easier to lay the matter aside and wait.

They were all bound in the same icy prison; he could afford patience.
The question of the hospital had been solved in this way.

Madame Le Maitre had taken O'Shea and his wife and children to live with her, and such patients as could be persuaded or forced into hospital were taken to his house and nursed there.

Then, also, as the disease became more prevalent, people who had thus far refused all sanitary measures, in dire fear opened their doors, and allowed Caius and O'Shea to enter with whitewash brushes and other means of disinfection.
Caius was successful in this, that, in proportion to the number of people who were taken ill, the death-rate was only one third of what it had been before he came.

He and his fellow-workers were successful also in a more radical way, for about the end of January it was suddenly observed among them that there were no new cases of illness.