But fear altogether outstripped
investigation, and those even who professed unbelief, took precautions;
whence the lights of the watchers of the dead might be seen twinkling,
far into the morning, in the solemn places around the city churches;
while many a poor creature who would have sold his wife's body for five
pounds, was ready to tear a medical student to pieces on the mere
chance that his scalpel had touched a human form stolen from the sacred
enclosure.
Now whether Beauchamp, who had watched Alec in the same situation
before, had anything to do with what follows I cannot tell; but his
conduct then lays him open to suspicion now.
Alec, who found some escape if not relief from painful thought in the
prosecution of his favourite study, was thus occupied one evening, no
very unfrequent occurrence, by candlelight. He had almost reached a
final understanding of the point in pursuit, when he was roused from
his absorption by a yell outside. He had for some time previous heard a
sound of gathering commotion, but had paid no attention to it. He
started up from his stooping posture, and having blown out his candle,
perceived by the lamps outside, that a crowd of faces, pale in the
darkness, was staring through the high iron palisade which surrounded
the school.
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