"I shall have to render an account for it," said poor Chat, rocking her body to and fro, as was her habit in moments of agitation: her speech was obviously reminiscent of church services. "If I had done my duty by her, this would never have happened." I am afraid that "this" meant the scandal, rather than any conduct which gave rise to it. But if Chat were going to be so aggressively penitent as this, the case was lost. "We must hope for the best--and, anyhow, put the best face on it," I urged. Chat cheered up a little. "Dear Jenny is very resourceful." Cartmell had observed that she was clever. I was waiting with a vague expectancy for some move from her, some turn or twist in her favor. We had not lost faith in her, any of us; the faith 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.