As she caught sight of the man in the doorway, Sybil shook her head. She'd been right, he was barely able to stand. Immediately she stepped forward, wrapped an arm about his shoulders to steady him. It was an instinctive response, and it was only afterwards that his words truly registered. He was burning – burning up with fever, even through the layers of her dress she could feel the heat from where her arm made contact with him. The air smelt of sickness.
It was only then that she felt a hint of fear. Supposing this was all real? She could catch it from him, couldn't she? She could end up as sick as her patient. Sybil knew it happened that way; nurses got sick despite every precaution, and this little flat of his was hardly as clean and sterile as a hospital. She didn't have anything to treat him with, either, and for a moment she wondered just what she was doing here, what good she would be able to do.
Then she looked at him, the man urging her to burn down his tenement block, feverish and afraid, and she knew. 'I know the risk,' she told him, and for that moment there was something soft and gentle in her voice, before she returned to brisk practicality.
'Let's get you back to bed,' she decided, and began to help him slowly along the hallway. 'You told me you suspect plague-' it was unreasonable, but she'd take his fears seriously. From the way he spoke, the way he looked, likely he wasn't from this place either. 'Have you got a rash, or any large swellings – under your arms, say?'
If he had, Sybil was in far more trouble than she'd bargained for.