“The line is plain. You will tell Helen what it means to lose one's crop, and try to make her understand the struggle I've had—how the weather was against me, and the debts kept piling up until I was ruined. You can describe the havoc made by drought, and frost, and cutting sand. Then there's the other side of the matter; the hardships a woman must bear on the plains when money's scarce. The loneliness, the monotonous drudgery, the heat, the Arctic cold.”
“Miss Dalton looks as if she had pluck. She wouldn't be easily daunted.”
“Do you think I don't know? But when you meet her you'll see that the life we lead is impossible for a girl like that.”
“It looks as if you wanted me to be your advocate,” Festing remarked rather dryly. “I'm to make all the excuses for you I can, and prove that you were justified in breaking your engagement. I doubt if I'm clever enough—”
Charnock stopped him. “No! Perhaps I used excuses, but my object is not to clear myself.” He paused and colored. “We'll admit that Helen lost nothing when I gave her up; but a girl, particularly a young, romantic girl, feels that kind of thing, and it might hurt worse if she thought she had loved a wastrel. I want her to feel that I broke my engagement for her sake, when nothing else was possible. That might soften the blow, and I really think it's true.”
“How much of it is true?” Festing asked bluntly.
“Ah,” said Charnock, “you're an uncompromising fellow. You meant that if you'd had my debts and difficulties, you could have made good?”
“I might; but we both know two or three other men whom I'd have backed to do so.”
“For all that, you'll admit that the thing was impossible for me?”
Festing knitted his brows. “I believe you could have overcome your difficulties; that is, if you had really made an effort and faced the situation earlier. But since you hadn't nerve enough, I dare say it was impossible.”