"What is the matter?" she asked at length.
"Failed?"
She looked up at him half incredulously. The very last letter she had received from Sypher had been full of the lust of battle. Septimus nodded gloomily.
"It was only a silly patent ointment like a hundred others, but it was Sypher's religion. Now his gods have gone, and he's lost. It's not good for a man to have no gods. I didn't have any once, and the devils came in. They drove me to try haschisch. But it must have been very bad haschisch, for it made me sick, and so I was saved."
"What made you send for me so urgently? The dog's tail—you knew I had to come."
"Sypher wanted you—to give him some new gods."
"He could have sent for me himself. Why did he ask you?"
"He didn't," cried Septimus. "He doesn't know anything about it. He hasn't the faintest idea that you're in London to-night. Was I wrong in bringing you back?"
To Zora the incomprehensible aspect of the situation was her own attitude. She did not know whether Septimus was wrong or not. She told herself that she ought to resent the summons which had caused her such needless anxiety as to his welfare, but she could feel no resentment. Sypher had failed. The mighty had fallen. She pictured a broken-hearted man, and her own heart ached for him.