The clouds settled down over Jenny; a veil of silence obscured her. Business letters were still exchanged through the bankers at Paris, but hers bore no postmarks; they must have arrived in Paris under cover; they came under cover to Breysgate, and thus gave no indication of her whereabouts. She was in constant communication with Cartmell about her affairs; to me she wrote much seldomer and only on necessity; to Chat she never wrote at all. To none of us, I believe, did she say a word about what had happened--and she certainly said no word to Catsford. Nor did we; her orders stood--no excuses, no explanations, no guesses. Thus starved of food, Catsford's interest at last languished; they did not forget Jenny, but talk about her catastrophe and Octon's death died down. Nobody having anything fresh to tell or any guess to make that had not been made already, the topic grew stale. The long wait began--it was a wait to me, for I knew that she meant to come back in the end--and lasted for nearly three years. I employed an ample leisure in writing my essay on "The Future of Religious and Ethical Thought." It brought me some credit in the outside world--or rather the small part of it that cares for such speculations; but indifference was the best I hoped from Catsford--and I did not altogether achieve that. Friendship sometimes gives a writer what I may term unnatural readers--and not with the happiest results. Alison continued to be kind and cordial to me, but he would not talk about my book. Mrs. Jepps--what business had she with such a book at all?--shook her head over it, and over me, very solemnly, and, as I heard, was not slow to trace a connection between Jenny's acts and my opinions. I did the local reputation of Breysgate no good by that book, though its reception in the Press flattered my vanity considerably.