As soon as she had revived sufficiently she allowed herself to be led up-stairs; but before going she pressed Septimus's hand with feverish significance.
Even to so inexperienced a mind as his the glance and the hand-shake conveyed a sense of trust, suggested dimly a reason for the fainting fit.
Once more he stood alone and perplexed in the little drawing-room.

Once more he passed his long fingers through his Struwel Peter hair and looked about the room for inspiration.

Finding none, he mechanically gathered up the two parts of the newspaper, with a man's instinct for tidiness in printed matter, and smoothed out the crumples that Emmy's hand had made on the outer sheet.

Whilst doing so, a paragraph met his eye, causing him to stare helplessly at the paper.
It was the announcement of the marriage of Mordaunt Prince at the British Consulate in Naples.
The unutterable perfidy of man! For the first time in his guileless life Septimus met it face to face.

To read of human depravity in the police reports is one thing, to see it fall like a black shadow across one's life is another.