`` Yes . '' `` Well , nothing more can be done at present . You may as well lie down for a while and save your strength . '' But Eunice could not do that . There was too much to attend to . She went out to the hall and threw up the window . Down below , at a safe distance , Charles Holland was waiting . The cold wind blew up to Eunice the odor of the disinfectants with which he had steeped himself . `` What does the doctor say ? '' he shouted . `` He thinks it 's the smallpox . Have you sent word to Victoria ? '' `` Yes , Jim Blewett drove into town and told her . She 'll stay with her sister till it is over . Of course it 's the best thing for her to do . She 's terribly frightened . '' Eunice 's lip curled contemptuously . To her , a wife who could desert her husband , no matter what disease he had , was an incomprehensible creature . But it was better so ; she would have Christopher all to herself . The night was long and wearisome , but the morning came all too soon for the dread certainty it brought .
The XXXXX pronounced the case smallpox .
doctor hall lip matter odor smallpox thing town while wind