Mr. Wedderburn went in with very painful fancies, which he could not shake off. The moment would have come, perhaps, when Bob D’yell had to tell his family that he was a ruined man, and he would be shrinking from that stern necessity. His friend pictured him wandering about the dark streets, or sitting in the rooms above the Insurance Office, where there was space to receive on occasion a belated director, and counting up all he had--alas! would it not rather be all the debts he had--reckoning them, and asking himself how long it would be before the storm burst, and how he was to tell _her_, and what the poor children would do? That was what the poor fellow would be thinking, wherever he was. Instead of coming back--the good lawyer exclaimed within himself in a little attempt at anger, to keep his sympathy from becoming too heart-rending--to one that might have helped him! But that would be just like Bob D’yell--ready enough to come to you if you were in trouble, to give all his mind to what was to be done: but not if the trouble was his own: more likely then to hide himself, to think shame of it, as if misfortune was a man’s own fault. Mr. Wedderburn did not know what to do, whether to hurry into Edinburgh to make inquiries, or to wait on, and see whether he would arrive by the late train. Somehow he had very little faith that his friend would come home. He might go away, thinking, perhaps, that the creditors would be more gentle with his family if he were gone. And that would be called absconding! Heaven only could tell what in his despair the poor fellow might do. Except suicide: there never occurred to his friend, in the endless thoughts he had on the subject, any fear of that, which to a Frenchman would be the first thing to be thought of--the natural refuge for a bankrupt. No, no!--come what might there was no need to think of that dark contingency. Besides, Mr. Wedderburn reflected, with a sense of the grim humour of the suggestion, that Dalyell, as the director of an insurance company, knew too well that such a step would take away the last resource his children might have. No, no!--not that. But he might go away. He might not be able to bear the sight of ruin as affecting them. That was what chiefly weighed upon himself--the woman and her children; the girls, who would not know what it meant; and poor Fred, who would know what it meant--who would have to abandon everything on which his heart was most set. Had Wedderburn been aware of the conversation which had taken place between Fred and his father his troubled thoughts would have been still more serious: as it was, all he could do was to keep his countenance, to look as like his ordinary as possible, not to frighten the poor things too soon.