He broke off for a moment, and there was a trace of embarrassment in his manner when he went on again. "Perhaps I ought to have managed it sooner," he added. "Still, things never seem to go quite as one would like with me, and you can understand that a dainty, delicate girl brought up in comfort in England would find it rough out here."
Wyllard glanced round the bare room in which he sat, and into the other, which was also furnished in a remarkably primitive manner.
"Yes," he assented, "I can quite realise that."
"Well," said his companion, "it's a thing that has been worrying me a good deal of late, because, as a matter of fact, I'm not much farther forward than I was four years ago. In the meanwhile, Agatha, who has some talent for music, was in a first-class master's hands. Afterwards she gave lessons, and got odd singing engagements. A week ago, I had a letter from her in which she said that her throat was giving out."
He stopped again for a moment, with trouble in his face, and then fumbling under his pillow produced a letter, which he carefully folded.
"We're rather good friends," he said. "You can read that part of it."
Wyllard took the letter, and a suggestion of quickening interest crept into his eyes as he read. Then he looked up at Hawtrey.
"It's a brave letter—the kind a brave girl would write," he said. "Still, it's evident that she's anxious."
There was silence for a moment or two, which was only broken by Sally clattering about the stove. Dissimilar in character, as they were, the two were firm friends, and there had been a day when, as they worked upon a dizzy railroad trestle, Hawtrey had held his comrade fast when a plank slipped away. He had, it was characteristic, thought nothing of the matter, but Wyllard was one who remembered things of that kind.
"Now," said Hawtrey, "you see my trouble. This place isn't fit for her, and I couldn't even go across for some time yet, but her father's folks have died off, and there's nothing to be expected from her mother's relatives. Any way, she can't be left to face the blow alone. It's unthinkable. Well, there's only one course open to me, and that's to raise as many dollars on a mortgage as I can, fit the place out with fixings brought from Winnipeg, and sow a double acreage with borrowed capital. I'll send for her as soon as I can get the house made a little more comfortable."