She could not set her back against the wall of that little house of theirs and meet every assailant; she could not tide it out in heroic silence, and abstinence alike from comfort and complaint. That was her natural impulse; and the victory, if slow, would have been certain: so Bessie thought at least. But want was at the door, and they could not afford to wait; something else must be attempted. Bessie must go out into the market-place and seek new masters--there was no longer work for her here. This was how the scene was shifted in the following conclusive act. John Brown, travelling, and fuming and aggravating himself much over the loss of his time and the distraction of his thoughts, was in London that day--a May-day, when everybody was in London. He had seen his detective, and no further intelligence had been obtained. Phœbe Thomson was as far off as ever--farther off; for now that all these efforts had been made, it was clear that either she must be dead or in some quarter of the world impervious to newspaper advertisements and detective officers. Mr Brown bore the disappointment with a very good grace. He felt contented now to slacken his efforts; he even felt as if he himself were already the possessor of old Mrs Thomson’s twenty thousand pounds. As he went leisurely through the streets, he paused before one of those “Scholastic Agency” offices which abound in the civilised end of London. It was in the ground-floor of a great faded, sombre, house, in a street near St James’s Park--a place of aching interest to some people in that palpitating world of human interests. It occurred to Mr Brown to go in and see if there were any lists to be looked over. Phœbe Thomson might have a daughter who might be a governess. It was an absurd idea enough, and he knew it to be so; nevertheless he swung open the green baize door.