The westering sun caught her face through the window as we entered the outskirts of Catsford; her eyes looked like a couple of new sovereigns. "Yes, I'm frightened." "Not you! You've courage enough for a dozen." "Ah, I like you to say that! But I must make terms with him, you know." She caught and pressed my hand. "But I don't believe I'm quite a coward." All this could mean but one thing--Octon had a great hold on her; yet against him was a powerful incentive. Between the two--between his power, which was great, and the power against him whose greatness she had acknowledged to Fillingford that morning, she must patch up conditions of peace--a secret treaty. I had no idea what the terms could or would be. If Octon had the naming of them, they would not be easy. Hatcham Ford just held its freedom against the encroaching town. No more than fifty yards from its gates was the last villa--a red-brick house of eccentric architecture but comfortable dimensions; its side windows looked toward the gate of the Ford, and on the left its garden ran up to the road on to which the shrubberies encircling the old house faced. A tall oak fence surrounded the garden--on the gate was written, in large gilt letters, "Ivydene." That house, like so many in Catsford, was on Jenny's land. I wished that Cartmell would keep a tighter hand on his builders. Nearly swallowed by the flood of modern erections as it was, the old house still preserved its sequestered charm. The garden was hidden from the road by a close screen in front; at the back it ran gently down to the murmuring river. Within were low ceilings crossed by old beams, and oak paneling everywhere. Octon's tenancy and personality were marked by clusters of barbaric spears and knives, hung against the oak, burnished to a high polish, flashing against their time-blackened background. Visitors were not expected. Octon's man--a small wizened fellow of full middle age--seemed rather startled by the sight of Jenny; he hastily pushed, rather than ushered, us into the dining room, a room on the left of the doorway. In a moment or two Octon came to us. He stood in the doorway, his big frame looking immense under the low lintel which his head all but touched. "You're not the visitors I expected," he said with a laugh. "I've stayed in, waiting for Aspenick." "Sir John won't come," said Jenny. "But I must speak to you--alone." She turned to me. "You're sure you don't mind, Austin?" "Of course you must see him alone. Where shall I go?" "Stay here," he said. "We'll go next door--in the study." He held the door for her, and she went out. I heard them enter a room next to the one in which I was; the door was shut after them. Then for a long while I heard nothing more, except the murmur of the little river, which seemed loud to my unaccustomed ears, though probably people living in the house would soon cease to notice it.