rned face made its
white appeal to the universe: a laugh billowed the silence about its
head.

But no rudeness could hurt that motionless heart--no insult bring a
blush on that pale face. The closed eyes, the abandoned hands seemed
only to pray:

"Let me into the dark--out of the eyes of those men!"

Alec gave one sob in the vain effort to master the conflicting emotions
of indignation and pity. It reverberated in the laugh which burst from
the students of the healing art. Almost quenched in the laugh he heard
one word however, in the same voice which had made the jest--a voice he
knew well enough--that of Patrick Beauchamp. His face blazed up; his
eyes flashed; and he had made one step forward, when he was arrested by
the still face of the dead woman, which, ghostly as the morning moon,
returned no glow in the red sunlight of his wrath; and in reverence he
restrained his anger. In another moment, the professor arrived.

During the lecture and accompanying demonstrations. Alec was deaf and
blind from burning rage; in the midst of which, however, he almost
forgot his own wrong in regarding that done to the dead. He became, in
his own eyes, the champion of one whom nature and death had united to
render defenceless. From the verge of a gulf more terrible than the
grave, her cry had reached him, and he would rise to avenge her.

As soon as they came out, he walked up to Beauchamp.

"You called me a spoony," he said through his set teeth.

"I did," answered Beauchamp, with an admirable drawl of indifference.

Alec replied with a blow; whereupon Beauchamp knocked him down. But he
was up in a moment; and, although his antagonist was both older and
bigger, the elasticity of his perfect health soon began to tell. There
was little science between them, and what there was lay on Beauchamp's
side; yet he defended himself more and more feebly, for his wind had
soon given way. At length, after receiving a terrible blow on the
mouth, Beauchamp dropped his arms and turned his back; and Alec, after
some hesitation, let him go without the parting kick which he was
tempted to give him, and which he had so well deserved.

The men dispersed without remark, ashamed of themselves, and admiring
the bumpkin--most of them were gentlemen enough for that; while each of
the combatants retired unaccompanied to his own lodging--Alec with a
black eye, which soon passed through yellow back to its own natural
hue, and Beauchamp with a cut, the