He then lighted a candle, and worked on.
The truth was unfolding itself gently and willingly. At last, feeling
tired, he laid down his scalpel, dropped upon a wooden chair, and, cold
as it was, fell fast asleep. When he awoke, the candle was _bobbing_ in
its socket, alternately lighting and shadowing the dead man on the
table. Strange glooms were gathering about the bottles on the shelves,
and especially about one corner of the room, where--but I must not
particularize too much. It must be remembered that he had awaked
suddenly, in a strange place, and with a fitful light. He confessed to
Mr Cupples that he had felt a little uncomfortable--not frightened, but
_eerie_. He was just going to rise and go home, when, as he stretched
out his hand for his scalpel, the candle sunk in darkness, and he lost
the guiding glitter of the knife. At the same moment, he caught a
doubtful gleam of two eyes looking in at him from one of the windows.
That moment the place became insupportable with horror. The vague sense
of an undefined presence turned the school of science into a
charnel-house. He started up, hurried from the room, feeling as if his
feet took no hold of the floor and his back was fearfully exposed,
locked the door, threw the key upon the porter's table, and fled.
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