The best quality he possessed was an entire and profound reverence for
women. Indignation even was almost quelled in the shock he received,
when one of the students, for the pleasure of sneering at his
discomposure, and making a boast of his own superiority to such
weakness, uttered a brutal jest. In vain the upturned 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.
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