Septimus lay on his back and gazed at the ceiling. So vivid, so alive; that dreadful colour! Never would he have chosen such a thing. Never! For what concern of his were the colours; the walls of his prison; the white sheets that foamed around him? What concern of his, of Septimus', were the curtains, lined with their pointing fingers, there by that dread cold thing: the window.
He would not move. He would not crawl, childlike, from the grasping sheets to cover those fingers. Why should he? Why should Septimus, the chosen, reveal himself to the faces that waited breathless in the wallpaper? Were he to move, they would be on him. Human nature would be on him. Holmes would be on him. So you are in a funk, he had said, as he swooped at the head of human nature, as he jeered at Septimus the relic, the punishable.
But Evans was in the street! There he stood, beneath the window, in his grey suit. Surely, Septimus must wake for him, must wake for the dead?
Septimus was calling again, gazing out of the window. She should stop him. She must stop him. People would hear. Mrs Filmer would hear. And when they went out, Mrs Filmer would look at her with her small eyes and would not say a word. But he was not mad!
'Septimus, come away,' the unseen bade him, whispered out at his back. But could he refuse Evans? Evans who called him with no words, who stood in his grey suit down by the railings in the street.
But she was before him now, the invisible, with her delicate face and her water-cold flowers for eyes. Her hand was on his shoulder, that heavy hand with the quick, slight fingers; the clever fingers that had first drawn him to her; its terrible weight, its steady weight.
She stood before him; between Septimus and the window; between Septimus and Evans, as the Big Ben tolled out ten o'clock over London. (The leaden circles dissolved in the air.)
