"Here's a letter."
"Oh, post it," said Septimus sleepily.
"You haven't written it. The missus has written it. It has a French stamp and the Paris postmark. You'd better read it."
He put it on his master's pillow, and went to the window to admire the view. Septimus aroused, read the letter. It was from Emmy. It ran:
"DEAREST SEPTIMUS:
"I can't stand this loneliness in Paris any longer. I can't, I can't. If you were here and I could see you even once a week, I shouldn't mind. But to go on day after day indefinitely without a comforting word from you is more than I can bear. You say the flat is ready. I am coming over at once with baby and Madame Bolivard, who swears she will never leave me. How she is going to get on in London without a word of English, I don't know. I don't mind if I meet Zora. Perhaps it will be better for you that I should. And I think it will be quite safe for me now. Don't hate me and think me horrid and selfish, my dear Septimus, but I do want you. I do. I do. Thanks for the toy train. Baby enjoys the paint on the carriages so much; but Madame Bolivard says it isn't good for him. Dear, if I thought you wouldn't forgive me for being such a worry, I wouldn't worry you.
"Your always grateful
"EMMY."
Septimus lit the half-smoked pipe of the night before that lay on the coverlet, and becoming aware of Wiggleswick, disturbed his contemplation of nature by asking him if he had ever been married.
"What?" asked Wiggleswick in the unmodulated tone of the deaf.
"Have you ever been married, Wiggleswick?"