“He didn’t,” snapped Cousin Jane.  “They were joined together by a scrubby man in a registry office.”

This is the wild and unjust way in which women talk.  For aught Cousin Jane knew the Chelsea Registrar might have been an Antinous for beauty.

Mrs. Oldrieve shook her head sadly.  She had known how it would be.  If only they had been married in church by their good vicar, this calamity could not have befallen them.

“All the churches and all the vicars and all the archbishops couldn’t have made that man anything else than a doddering idiot!  How Emmy could have borne with him for a day passes my understanding.  She has done well to get rid of him.  She has made a mess of it, of course.  People who marry in that way generally do.  It serves her right.”

So spoke Cousin Jane, whom Sypher found, in a sense, an unexpected ally.  She made his task easier.  Mrs. Oldrieve remained unconvinced.

“And the baby just a month or so old.  Poor little thing!  What’s to become of it?”

“Emmy will have to come here,” said Cousin Jane firmly, “and I’ll bring it up.  Emmy isn’t fit to educate a rabbit.  You had better write and order her to come home at once.”

“I’ll write to-morrow,” sighed Mrs. Oldrieve.

Sypher reflected on the impossibilities of the proposition and on the reasons Emmy still had for remaining in exile in Paris.  He also pitied the child that was to be brought up by Cousin Jane.  It had extravagant tastes.  He smiled.

“My friend Dix is already thinking of sending him to the University; so you see they have plans for his education.”

Cousin Jane sniffed.  She would make plans for them!  As for the University—­if it could turn out a doddering idiot like Septimus, it was criminal to send any young man to such a seat of unlearning.  She would not allow him to have a voice in the matter.  Emmy was to be summoned to Nunsmere.

Sypher was about to deprecate the idea when he reflected again, and thought of Hotspur and the spirits from the vasty deep.  Cousin Jane could call, and so could Mrs. Oldrieve.  But would Emmy come?  As the answer to the question was in the negative he left Cousin Jane to her comfortable resolutions.

“You will no doubt discuss the matter with Dix,” he said.

Cousin Jane threw up her hands.  “Oh, for goodness’ sake, don’t let him come here!  I couldn’t bear the sight of him.”

Sypher looked inquiringly at Mrs. Oldrieve.

“It has been a great shock to me,” said the gentle lady.  “It will take time to get over it.  Perhaps he had better wait a little.”

Sypher walked home in a wrathful mood.  Ostracism was to be added to Septimus’s crown of martyrdom.

Perhaps, on the other hand, the closing of “The Nook” doors was advantageous.  He had dreaded the result of Cousin Jane’s cross-examination, as lying was not one of his friend’s conspicuous accomplishments.  Soothed by this reflection he smoked a pipe, and took down Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” from his shelves.