Mr. Selby was gone three days. The mission he had undertaken soon showed itself to be more difficult than he thought. Harry had gone away without leaving a trace behind him. He had appeared at the office for an hour or two quite unexpectedly before his leave had expired, and paid a few small debts, and taken away some small articles which were in his desk, disappearing again without a word as to his destination. At his lodgings Harry had not been seen at all. His portmanteau was there, forlorn in the dusky lobby of the lodging-house, and the unfortunate hamper, out of which odours not altogether delightful were proceeding, and which the mistress of the house implored Mr. Selby to take away with him. He did not know what to do: finally, but with great secrecy, that his principals might not be offended, he put a detective on Harry’s track, such as it was. But there seemed no track, not so much as a circle in the water or a footprint upon the soil, to show where he had gone. Selby had gone to Liverpool with great confidence in himself; pleased, for he had a good heart, to please and console these two women; but also pleased, for his own part, to show at once how kind and how clever he was. He had not a doubt that he would succeed and go back triumphant, and prove himself so superior to all the clowns about, that Joan could have no further hesitation; and it was in this confidence, being so sure that the work he had taken up would be prosperous, that he had set out upon his mission. But when he returned his mind was very different; he was greatly depressed, not only with the sense that what he had to tell was unsatisfactory, but that his own prestige would be seriously impaired. He had left home with the conviction that he would find everything out and set everything right; that neither would adverse fate be able to baffle him in the wisdom of his investigations, nor Harry be able to resist his brotherly-fatherly representations. And when Philip Selby found nothing but a blank void, in which there was nobody to persuade and remonstrate with, he felt himself tumble down from the vantage ground which he had thought so certain. How was he to go back and say he had failed? His detectives had indeed done their best to buoy him up with hope; but he was obliged to come back with no news, presenting a very blank countenance to the anxious looks of the mother and sister. The first sight of him sent their hearts down, down to the very depths.