Of course his interview with Alison sent Cartmell flying up to me in excitement and consternation. He had become devoted to Jenny; he was devoted also to that fabric of influence and importance which she had been building for herself. He was terribly upset. He had not been so far behind the scenes as I had, or as Chat; the catastrophe came on him with unmitigated suddenness. He had been a great partisan of the Fillingford match; that crumbled before his eyes. But the greater blow was the mystery of her flight with Octon. "I can tell you nothing. We must wait for a letter." It was all I could say unless and until Jenny gave me leave to speak. That she did promptly, so far as Cartmell was concerned, thereby enabling me to use his services in regard to Powers. A letter arrived on Saturday morning--the flight had been on Thursday. It was a brief letter, and a businesslike one. It showed two things: that Jenny was, for the moment, in London--she did not say where--and that she was not coming back. It told me to take Cartmell into my full confidence, to tell him all I knew; neither he, nor Chat, nor I, was to say a word to anybody else. "Announce that I am going to winter abroad, and say nothing else--absolutely nothing--no explanations, no excuses, no guesses. Say just what I have told you, and nothing else. Tell Chat that I want nothing sent on. I shall get what I want. I will write at length about business--to you or to Mr. Cartmell--as soon as I have made my plans." Then she bade me go to Hatcham Ford, to pay off Octon's two servants, and have the house put in charge of a caretaker. That injunction was the only reference to Octon; of her own position, feelings, or intentions in respect to him she made no mention whatever. Cartmell heard the letter, and the story which, in obedience to it, I told him, without signs of very great surprise. He twisted his mouth about and grunted over Jenny's folly and double-dealing--but to his practical mind the present situation was the question; my story seemed to make that more, not less, explicable. Jenny, in honor pledged to Fillingford, found that she wanted to marry Octon; she had not dared to tell Fillingford so; hence all the subterfuges, the secret meetings, the catastrophe, and the flight. "In a day or two we shall get news of their marriage, no doubt. It's very silly, and not very creditable--but it's hardly a tragedy, Austin. Only--there goes Fillingford Manor forever! And what a master for Breysgate!"