He had considerable misgivings
about the new experience he had to meet, and sought, by the
concentration of his will, to prepare himself to encounter the
inevitable with calmness, and, if possible, with seeming indifference.
But he was not prepared after all for the disadvantage of entering a
company already hardened to those peculiarities of the position for
which a certain induration is as desirable as unavoidable.
When he entered the room, he found a group already gathered. He drew
timidly towards the table on the other side, not daring to glance at
something which lay upon it--"white with the whiteness of what is
dead;" and, feeling as if all the men were looking at him, as indeed
most of them were, kept staring, or trying to stare, at other things in
the room. But all at once, from an irresistible impulse, he faced
round, and looked at the table.
There lay the body of a woman, with a young sad face, beautiful in
spite of a terrible scar on the forehead, which indicated too plainly
with what brutal companions she had consorted. Alec's lip quivered, and
his throat swelled with a painful sensation of choking. He turned away,
and bit his lip hard to keep down his emotion.
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