The first day of his attendance in the dissecting-room was a memorable one, and had memorable consequences.

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.