But Eunice had seen it for herself.  She took it very calmly, the doctor thought.  And she had her reward at last—­such as it was.  She thought it amply sufficient.

One night Christopher Holland opened his swollen eyes as she bent over him.  They were alone in the old house.  It was raining outside, and the drops rattled noisily on the panes.

Christopher smiled at his sister with parched lips, and put out a feeble hand toward her.

“Eunice,” he said faintly, “you’ve been the best sister ever a man had.  I haven’t treated you right; but you’ve stood by me to the last.  Tell Victoria—­tell her—­to be good to you—­”

His voice died away into an inarticulate murmur.  Eunice Carr was alone with her dead.

They buried Christopher Holland in haste and privacy the next day.  The doctor disinfected the house, and Eunice was to stay there alone until it might be safe to make other arrangements.  She had not shed a tear; the doctor thought she was a rather odd person, but he had a great admiration for her.  He told her she was the best nurse he had ever seen.  To Eunice, praise or blame mattered nothing.  Something in her life had snapped—­some vital interest had departed.  She wondered how she could live through the dreary, coming years.

Late that night she went into the room where her mother and brother had died.  The window was open and the cold, pure air was grateful to her after the drug-laden atmosphere she had breathed so long.  She knelt down by the stripped bed.

“Mother,” she said aloud, “I have kept my promise.”

When she tried to rise, long after, she staggered and fell across the bed, with her hand pressed on her heart.  Old Giles Blewett found her there in the morning.  There was a smile on her face.

XIII.  THE CONSCIENCE CASE OF DAVID BELL

Eben Bell came in with an armful of wood and banged it cheerfully down in the box behind the glowing Waterloo stove, which was coloring the heart of the little kitchen’s gloom with tremulous, rose-red whirls of light.

“There, sis, that’s the last chore on my list.  Bob’s milking.  Nothing more for me to do but put on my white collar for meeting.  Avonlea is more than lively since the evangelist came, ain’t it, though!”

Mollie Bell nodded.  She was curling her hair before the tiny mirror that hung on the whitewashed wall and distorted her round, pink-and-white face into a grotesque caricature.

“Wonder who’ll stand up to-night,” said Eben reflectively, sitting down on the edge of the wood-box.  “There ain’t many sinners left in Avonlea—­only a few hardened chaps like myself.”

“You shouldn’t talk like that,” said Mollie rebukingly.  “What if father heard you?”

“Father wouldn’t hear me if I shouted it in his ear,” returned Eben.  “He goes around, these days, like a man in a dream and a mighty bad dream at that.  Father has always been a good man.  What’s the matter with him?”