Perhaps he had never fully realized his wealth; it had been an accident rather than a custom of his life, and when it had failed in the only test he had made of its power, it is to be feared that he only sentimentally regretted it.

It was too early yet for him to comprehend the veiled blessings of the catastrophe in its merciful disruption of habits and ways of life; his loneliness was still the hopeless solitude left by vanished ideals and overthrown idols.

He was satisfied that he had never cared for Susy, but he still cared for the belief that he had.
After the discovery of Pedro's body that fatal morning, a brief but emphatic interview between himself and Mrs.McClosky had followed.

He had insisted upon her immediately accompanying Susy and himself to Mrs.Peyton in San Francisco.

Horror-stricken and terrified at the catastrophe, and frightened by the strange looks of the excited servants, they did not dare to disobey him.