Yet some people trusted Tom Cartwright.
Mrs.Cartwright did so.

She was a large, dull woman, but had kept a touch of the beauty that had marked her when she was young.

She was kind, conventional, and generally anxious to take the proper line.
Cartwright was twelve years older, and since she was a widow and had three children when she married him, her friends declared her money accounted for much, and a lawyer relation carefully guarded, against Cartwright's using her fortune.
Yet, in a sense, Cartwright was not an adventurer, although his ventures in finance and shipping were numerous.

He sprang from an old Liverpool family whose prosperity diminished when steamers replaced sailing ships.
His father had waited long before he resigned himself to the change, but was not altogether too late, and Cartwright was now managing owner of the Independent Freighters Line.

The company's business had brought him to Montreal, and when it was transacted he had taken Mrs.Cartwright and her family to the hotel by the Ontario lake.
Cartwright's hair and mustache were white; his face was fleshy and red.
He was fastidious about his clothes, and his tailor cleverly hid the bulkiness of his figure.