women with newspapers, lay discarded on the floor.

With Septimus's help Zora and the maid carried her to the sofa; they opened
the window and gave her smelling salts. Septimus anxiously desired to be
assured that she was not dying, and Zora thanked heaven that her mother
had gone to bed. Presently Emmy recovered consciousness.

"I must have fainted," she said in a whisper.

"Yes, dear," said Zora, kneeling by her side. "Are you better?"

Emmy stared past Zora at something unseen and terrifying.

"It was foolish. The heat, I suppose. Mr. Sypher's burning board." She
turned an appealing glance to Septimus. "Did I say anything silly?"

When he told her that she had slipped over the arm of the chair without a
word, she looked relieved and closed her eyes. As soon as she had revived
sufficiently she allowed herself to be led up-stairs; but before going she
pressed Septimus's hand with feverish significance.

Even to so inexperienced a mind as his the glance and the hand-shake
conveyed a sense of trust, suggested dimly a reason for the fainting fit.
Once more he stood alone and perplexed in the little drawing-room. Once
more he passed his long fingers through his Struwel Peter hair and looked
about the room for inspiration. Finding none, he mechanically gathered up
the two parts of the newspaper, with a man's instinct for tidiness in
printed matter, and smoothed out the crumples that Emmy's hand had made on
the outer sheet. Whilst doing so, a paragraph met his eye, causing him to
stare helplessly at the paper.