the life-blood of the slain,
Indelible the spots remain;
And aye for vengeance call,
Till racking pangs of piercing pain
Upon the guilty fall.
AEschylus. (Translated by Professor Anstice.)

If Tom May's arrival at home was eagerly anticipated there, it was with
a heavy heart that he prepared for what he had never ceased to look on
as a treadmill life. He had enjoyed Paris, both from the society and
the abstract study, since he still retained that taste for theory
rather than practice, which made him prefer diseases to sick people,
and all sick people to those of Stoneborough. The student life, in the
freedom of a foreign capital, was, even while devoid of license and
irregularity, much pleasanter than what he foresaw at home, even though
he had obtained a separate establishment. His residence at Paris, with
the vague hope it afforded, cost him more in the resignation than his
prospects in London. It was the week when he would have been
canvassing for the appointment, and he was glad to linger abroad out of
reach of Sir Matthew's remonstrances, and his father's compunction,
while he was engaged in arranging for a French translation of Dr.
Spencer's book, and likewise in watching an interesting case, esteemed
a great medical curiosity, at the Hotel Dieu.

He was waiting in the lecture-room, when one of the house surgeons came
in, saying, 'Ah! I am glad to see you here. A compatriot of yours has
been brought in, mortally injured in a gambling fray. You may perhaps
assist in getting him identified.'

Tom followed him to the accident ward, and beheld a senseless figure,
with bloated and discoloured features, distorted by the effects of the
injury, a blow upon the temple, which had caused a fall backwards on
the sharp edge of a stove, occasioning fatal injury to the spine.
Albeit well accustomed to gaze critically upon the tokens of mortal
agony, Tom felt an unusual shudder of horror and repugnance as he
glanced on the countenance, so disfigured and contorted that there was
no chance of recognition, and turned his attention to the clothes,
which lay in a heap on the floor. The contents of the pockets had been
taken out, and consisted only of some pawnbroker's duplicates, a
cigar-case, and a memorandum-book, which last he took in his hand, and
began to unfasten, without looking at it, while he took part in the
conversation of the surgeons on the technical nature of the injuries.
Th