From that moment he continued to get on in the world, and was now a Commissioner of Customs, with a salary of L1500 a year.

As soon as he had been thus enabled to maintain a wife, he selected a wife who assisted to maintain himself.

She was an Irish peer's widow, with a jointure of L2000 a year.
A few months after his marriage, Chillingly Gordon effected insurances on his wife's life, so as to secure himself an annuity of L1000 a year in case of her decease.

As she appeared to be a fine healthy woman, some years younger than her husband, the deduction from his income effected by the annual payments for the insurance seemed an over-sacrifice of present enjoyment to future contingencies.

The result bore witness to his reputation for sagacity, as the lady died in the second year of their wedding, a few months after the birth of her only child, and of a heart-disease which had been latent to the doctors, but which, no doubt, Gordon had affectionately discovered before he had insured a life too valuable not to need some compensation for its loss.