It proved that his life was very heavily insured--to a much larger sum than anybody had been aware of, and in several offices. Neither Mrs. Dalyell, nor any of his advisers knew the reason for these unusual liberalities of arrangement, if not that Mr. Dalyell, being himself concerned in an insurance office, thought it right to set an example to others by the number and value of his own. Enough was obtained in this sorrowful way to clear off everything that was wrong in his affairs, and to secure Fred, when he should come of age, in unencumbered possession of Yalton, as well as to leave the portions of the girls intact. So far as this went, and though it was a dreadful thing to think, much more to say, no doubt it passed through Mr. Wedderburn’s mind, who was the sole executor, with the exception of Mrs. Dalyell, that the moment of poor Bob’s death was singularly well chosen. Mrs. Dalyell left everything in his hands, so that the conclusion was in no way forced upon her, nor would she have entertained it if it had occurred to her. Nothing would have persuaded her that her Robert had drowned himself, and she knew no reason why. She was not a woman who demanded explanations, who searched into the motives of things. She accepted the event when it happened with sorrow or with thankfulness, according as it was good or bad, but she did not demand to have the secret told her of how it came about. And she grieved deeply for her good husband; the earth was altogether overcast to her for a time. She felt no warmth in the sun, no beauty in the world--a pall hung over everything. Robert was gone--what was the good of all those secondary things, the comforts and ease of life, which were not him, nor ever could bring him back? She would have accepted joyfully a life of poverty and privation with Robert instead of this dreadful comfortable blank without him. Her emotions were as sincere as they were sober and unexaggerated. But, as was natural, this gloom of early bereavement did not last. After a few months she was capable of taking a little pleasure in the spring weather, of watching the flowers come up. And though the first notice she took of these ameliorating circumstances was to say with tears, “How pleased your father always was to see the crocuses!” yet it was the beginning of a better time. Mrs. Dalyell was still in the forties; she was in excellent health, and she was of a mild, unimpassioned temperament. It was not possible that the clouds should hang for ever about such a tranquil sky.