had become blind--if you will,
instinctive--surviving even the Waterloo of her flight and this
calamitous tragedy.

Were we wrong? Only the future could show that; but the next day brought
us some encouragement. There was a fuller paragraph, confirming the
conjectured identification of Octon, giving a notice of his work, and
the name of his opponent in the duel--an officer belonging to an old
family distinguished for its orthodox Catholic opinions. "The quarrel is
said to have originated in a discussion of religious differences." That
sounded quite likely, and relieved the fear that it might have sprung
from a more compromising origin. Then came--well, something very like an
apology for that phrase about the lady "understood to be Mrs. Octon."
The lady was not, it now appeared, Mrs. Octon; she was "a Miss Driver"
(_A_ Miss Driver--that would sound odd to Catsford!) to whom the
deceased gentleman was engaged to be married. This Miss Driver had taken
a house in the Rue Balzac, where she was residing with another lady, her
friend: the deceased gentleman had recently arrived at the Hotel de
l'Univers; notice of their intended marriage had been given at the
British Consulate three days before the fatal occurrence. A few days
more would have seen them man and wife. "Much sympathy is felt for the
lady under the very painful circumstances of the case. It is understood
that she will leave Tours immediately after the funeral."

It would hardly be doing Cartmell a wrong to describe him as gleeful;
the statement was so much less damaging than might have been expected.
To the world at large it was, indeed, not damaging at all; it rather
appealed to sympathy and invested Jenny with a pathetic interest. In
Catsford the case was different: there was the flight, the silence, the
interval. But even for Catsford we had a case--and the difference
between even a bad case and no case at all is, in matters like this,
enormous.

What was the truth of it? It was not possible to believe that the notice
to the Consulate was a mere maneuver, a pretense, and a sham. She was
neither so cold-blooded nor so foolish as that--and Octon would have
ridiculed such a sham out of existence. The notice to the Consulate
showed that her long hesitation had at last ended--possibly on Octon's
entreaties, though I continued to doubt that--possibly for conscience'
sake, possibly from regard for the world's opinion. She had made up her
mind to let go her "precari