"I've been," said Septimus. "Four days."

"And you've got up in this state? You must go back at once. Have you seen a
doctor? No, of course you haven't. Oh, dear!" She wrung her hands. "You are
not fit to be trusted alone. I'll drive you to your hotel and see that
you're comfortable and send for a doctor."

"I've left the hotel," said Septimus. "I'm going to catch the eleven train.
My luggage is on that cab."

"But it's five minutes past eleven now. You have lost the train--thank
goodness."

"I'll be in good time for the four o'clock," said Septimus. "This is the
way I generally travel. I told you." He rose, swayed a bit, and put his
hand on the table to steady himself. "I'll go and wait at the station. Then
I'll be sure to catch it. You see I must go."

"But why?" cried Zora.

"Wiggleswick's letter. The house has been burnt down and everything in it.
The only thing he saved was a large portrait of Queen Victoria."

Then he fainted.

* * * * *

Zora had him carried to a room in the hotel and sent for a doctor, who kept
him in bed for a fortnight. Zora and Turner nursed him, much to his
apologetic content. The Callenders in the meanwhile went to Berlin.

When Septimus got up, gaunt and staring, he appealed to the beholder as the
most helpless thing which the Creator had clothed in the semblance of a
man.

"He must take very great care of himself for the next few weeks," said the
doctor. "If he gets a relapse I won't answer for the consequences. Can't
you take him somewhere?"

"Take him somewhere?" The idea had been worrying her for some days past. If
she left him to his own initiative he would probably go and camp with
Wiggleswick amid the ruins of his house in Shepherd's Bush, where he would
fall ill again and die. She would be responsible.

"We can't leave him here, at any rate," she remarked to Turner.

Turner agreed. As well abandon a month-old baby on a doorstep and expect it
to earn its livelihood. She also had come to take a proprietary interest in
Septimus.

"He might stay with us in Nunsmere. What do you think, Turner?"

"I think, ma'am," said Turner, "that would be the least improper
arrangement."

"He can have Cousin Jane's room," mused Zora, knowing that Cousin Jane
would fly at her approach.

"And I'll see, ma'am, that he comes down to his meals regular," said
Turner.

"Then it's settled," said Zora.

She went forthwith to the invalid and acquainted hi