Having dispatched these, he went into the coffee-room and ordered
breakfast. The waiters served him in horrified silence. A gaunt member,
breakfasting a few tables off, asked for the name of the debauchee, and
resolved to write to the Committee. Never in the club's history had a
member breakfasted in dress clothes--and in such disreputably disheveled
dress clothes! Such dissolute mohocks were a stumbling-block and an
offense, and the gaunt member, who had prided himself on going by clockwork
all his life, felt his machinery in some way dislocated by the spectacle.
But Septimus ate his food unconcernedly, and afterwards, mounting to the
library, threw himself into a chair before the fire and slept the sleep of
the depraved till Wiggleswick arrived with his clothes. Then, having
effected an outward semblance of decency, he went to the Ravenswood Hotel.
Wiggleswick he sent back to Nunsmere.

Emmy entered the prim drawing-room where he had been waiting for her, the
picture of pretty flower-like misery, her delicate cheeks white, a hunted
look in her baby eyes. A great pang of pity went through the man, hurting
him physically. She gave him a limp hand, and sat down on a saddle-bag
sofa, while he stood hesitatingly before her, balancing himself first on
one leg and then on the other.

"Have you had anything to eat?"

Emmy nodded.

"Have you slept?"

"That's a thing I shall never do again," she said querulously. "How can you
ask?"