microbes.

"I have one hope still," Hilda murmured to me by the bedside, when our
patient was at her worst. "If one contingency occurs, I believe we may
save her."

"What is that?" I asked.

She shook her head waywardly. "You must wait and see," she answered. "If
it comes off, I will tell you. If not, let it swell the limbo of lost
inspirations."

Next morning early, however, she came up to me with a radiant face,
holding a newspaper in her hand. "Well, it HAS happened!" she cried,
rejoicing. "We shall save poor Isabel Number Fourteen, I mean; our way
is clear, Dr. Cumberledge."

I followed her blindly to the bedside, little guessing what she could
mean. She knelt down at the head of the cot. The girl's eyes were
closed. I touched her cheek; she was in a high fever. "Temperature?" I
asked.

"A hundred and three."

I shook my head. Every symptom of fatal relapse. I could not imagine
what card Hilda held in reserve. But I stood there, waiting.

She whispered in the girl's ear: "Arthur's ship is sighted off the
Lizard."