The Girl in His Shadow

Nora explains that Croft often asks her to prepare bodies for him, and Daniel’s horror changes to sympathy as he assumes that Nora is terrified by the task. When he offers to finish the autopsy, she refuses, and he realizes that they are in “combat.” Even as he points out the illegality of her actions, he notes her precision and care. Unnerved, Daniel asserts that a “woman of [her] delicacy and age should hardly be left to haunt dissecting rooms” (81) and suggests that Croft has done her a disservice. He reminds her that she would be accused of witchcraft if someone were to find her dissecting the dead girl, and he goes on to admonish her for her willingness to be alone with him, especially in the middle of the night. He declares that his sisters would never act so improperly.

Nora moves to inspect Lucy’s lungs, but Daniel refuses her the scissors. When she lifts the saw, he flinches from her, “recoiling at such an antithesis of femininity” (83). A moment later, he glimpses her “womanliness” when she smooths her apron and touches Lucy’s body, and he “swallow[s] in fear” (83) at this combination of qualities in a female.