When once he had convinced himself that he had no clue, and that Phoebe had disappeared, it had not been difficult indeed to keep his secret, and to hide the traces of his own wrong-doing, his own share in the catastrophe.

Between Phoebe's world and the world in which he was now to live, there were few or no links.
Bella Morrison might have supplied one.

But she and her mother had moved to Guernsey, and a year after Phoebe's flight Fenwick ascertained that old Mrs.Morrison was dead, and that Bella had gone to South America as companion to a lady.
So in an incredibly short time the crisis was over.

The last phase was connected with the cousin--Freddy Tolson--who had visited Phoebe the night before her journey to London, and was now in New South Wales.
A letter from Fenwick to this young man, containing a number of questions as to his conversation with Phoebe, and written immediately after Phoebe's flight, obtained an answer after some three or four months, but Tolson's reply was wholly unprofitable.

He merely avowed that he had discovered nothing at all of Phoebe's intention, and could throw no light whatever upon her disappearance.