And then in the early days of August there happened what perhaps had been inevitable this long while--something which was perhaps, despite halts and hopeful upward turns, merely a following of the direction in which this affair had been foredoomed to move since he had first come into it. Clifford first learned of it when Mr. Morton sent for him. He found the financier with his grim power of control trying to repress his agitation. “Day before yesterday was Jack’s twenty-fifth birthday,” said Mr. Morton, “and Jack came into that legacy left him by his aunt--two hundred thousand cash, you remember. That same day it was deposited in his name. And that same afternoon he began drinking. He was at it yesterday; he did not appear at the office at all. And last night he did not go home; Mary has not seen him since yesterday morning. God!”--with a burst of emotion--“I don’t like to be asking you this again--but do what you can to find the boy!” “I’ll get him if I can,” Clifford said quietly, and went away. Clifford did some quick thinking. Jack at last might just naturally have reached the limit of the endurance of his good resolution--yes, that probably was the case. But even if so, the weakness of the eaten-away structure of Jack’s will was not alone responsible for his break-down and disappearance. All Clifford’s instincts, and all his cold reasoning, told him that Loveman was concerned in this latest relapse of Jack. It was, as he well knew, an easy matter to keep a man--either with or against his consent--hidden in the vast human wilderness of New York. More intently, and more carefully, than before Clifford now followed the little lawyer--about his downtown legal work by day, about the restaurants and roof-gardens at night. Every hour of the twenty-four either Clifford, or the men assigned to help him, had the little man under surveillance. As far as eye could discern, Loveman was preserving the established routine of his life: a figure at various public resorts until three--then to bed--up at eight--at his office at nine-thirty--then with his dinner at seven beginning the round of pleasure for the night. But on the fourth evening after Jack’s disappearance there was a slight variation. Clifford, supping with Uncle George, whose company he found a boon in this late-houred routine, saw Loveman start home at a little before two, an hour earlier than was his wont. In a taxi with Uncle George Clifford followed Loveman’s car, saw Loveman when he came to one of the upper West Forties,--a street of one-time handsome residences,--slip out of his car and walk rapidly through the quiet, deserted cross-street. Clifford also got quickly out of his taxi, and slipped into the dark shadow of a stoop--where Uncle George, showing a surprising quickness, joined him a moment later.