“But what are you going to do with hams?”

“Nothing,” said Septimus, “but when I see hams hanging up in a shop I always want to buy them.  They look so shiny.”

Zora’s delicate nostrils sniffed the faintest perfume of a mystery; but a moment afterwards the Callenders carried her off to Ledoyen’s and Longchamps and other indubitable actualities in which she forgot things less tangible.  Long afterwards she discovered that the friend was an old woman, a marchande des quatre saisons who sold vegetables in the Place de la Republique.  He had known her many years, and as she was at the point of death he comforted her with blood-puddings and flowers and hams and the ministrations of an indignant physician.  But at the time Septimus hid his Good Samaritanism under a cloud of vagueness.

Then came a period during which Zora lost him altogether.  Days passed.  She missed him.  Life with the Callenders was a continuous shooting of rapids.  A quiet talk with Septimus was an hour in a backwater, curiously restful.  She began to worry.  Had he been run over by an omnibus?  Only an ever-recurring miracle could bring him safely across the streets of a great city.  When the Callenders took her to the Morgue she dreaded to look at the corpses.

“I do wish I knew what has become of him,” she said to Turner.

“Why not write to him, ma’am?” Turner suggested.

“I’ve forgotten the name of his hotel,” said Zora, wrinkling her forehead.

The name of the Hotel Quincamboeuf, where he lodged, eluded her memory.

“I do wish I knew,” she repeated.

Then she caught an involuntary but illuminating gleam in Turner’s eye, and she bade her look for hairpins.  Inwardly she gasped from the shock of revelation; then she laughed to herself, half amused, half indignant.  The preposterous absurdity of the suggestion!  But in her heart she realized that, in some undefined human fashion, Septimus Dix counted for something in her life.  What had become of him?

At last she found him one morning sitting by a table in the courtyard of the Grand Hotel, patiently awaiting her descent.  By mere chance she was un-Callendered.

“Why, what—?”

The intended reproval died on her lips as she saw his face.  His cheeks were hollow and white, his eyes sunken The man was ill.  His hand burned through her glove.  Feelings warm and new gushed forth.

“Oh, my dear friend, what is the matter?”

“I must go back to England.  I came to say good-bye.  I’ve had this from Wiggleswick.”

He handed her an open letter.  She waved it away.

“That’s of no consequence.  Sit down.  You’re ill.  You have a high temperature.  You should be in bed.”

“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.”