A gaunt member, breakfasting a few tables off, asked for the name of the debauchee, and resolved to write to the Committee.

Never in the club's history had a member breakfasted in dress clothes--and in such disreputably disheveled dress clothes! Such dissolute mohocks were a stumbling-block and an offense, and the gaunt member, who had prided himself on going by clockwork all his life, felt his machinery in some way dislocated by the spectacle.
But Septimus ate his food unconcernedly, and afterwards, mounting to the library, threw himself into a chair before the fire and slept the sleep of the depraved till Wiggleswick arrived with his clothes.

Then, having effected an outward semblance of decency, he went to the Ravenswood Hotel.
Wiggleswick he sent back to Nunsmere.
Emmy entered the prim drawing-room where he had been waiting for her, the picture of pretty flower-like misery, her delicate cheeks white, a hunted look in her baby eyes.

A great pang of pity went through the man, hurting him physically.

She gave him a limp hand, and sat down on a saddle-bag sofa, while he stood hesitatingly before her, balancing himself first on one leg and then on the other.
"Have you had anything to eat ?" Emmy nodded.
"Have you slept ?" "That's a thing I shall never do again," she said querulously.