But Macfarlane silenced him roughly, bidding him turn to

business. When they had got the body upstairs and laid it on

the table, Macfarlane made at first as if he were going away.

Then he paused and seemed to hesitate; and then, 'You had

better look at the face,' said he, in tones of some

constraint. 'You had better,' he repeated, as Fettes only

stared at him in wonder.

'But where, and how, and when did you come by it?' cried the

other.

'Look at the face,' was the only answer.

Fettes was staggered; strange doubts assailed him. He looked

from the young doctor to the body, and then back again. At

last, with a start, he did as he was bidden. He had almost

expected the sight that met his eyes, and yet the shock was

cruel. To see, fixed in the rigidity of death and naked on

that coarse layer of sackcloth, the man whom he had left well

clad and full of meat and sin upon the threshold of a tavern,

awoke, even in the thoughtless Fettes, some of the terrors of

the conscience. It was a CRAS TIBI which re-echoed in his

soul, that two whom he had known should have come to lie upon

these icy tables. Yet these were only secondary thoughts.

His first concern regarded Wolfe. Unprepared for a challenge

so momentous, he knew not how to look his comrade in the

130

Tales and Fantasies