It did not occur to her distraught mind that he was a man.

She spoke to herself, without thought, uttering the cry for help that had been pent within her all that awful night.
The puzzledom of Septimus grew unbearable in its intensity; then suddenly it burst like a skyrocket and a blinding rain of fire enveloped him.

He stood paralyzed with pain and horror.
The sullen morning light diffused itself through the room, mingling ironically with the pretty glow cast by the pink-shaded electric globes, while the two forlorn grotesques regarded each other, unconscious of each other's grotesqueness, the girl disheveled and haggard, the man with rough gray coat unbuttoned, showing the rumpled evening dress; her toque miserably awry, his black tie riding above his collar, the bow somewhere behind his ear.

And the tragedy of tragedies of a young girl's life was unfolded.
"My God, what am I to do ?" Septimus stared at her, his hands in his trousers pockets.

In one of them his fingers grasped a folded bit of paper.