Their search for the gum had proved useless.

He pitied Harding, who had staked his future upon its success.

The man had not complained much; but Blake knew what he must feel; and he thought with compassion of the lonely woman who had bravely sent her husband out and was now waiting for him in the mean discomfort of a cheap tenement.

It was not difficult to imagine her anxiety and suspense.
Next he began to ponder his own affairs, which were not encouraging, though he did not think he really regretted the self-sacrificing course he had taken.

His father had died involved in debt, and Blake suspected that it had cost Colonel Challoner something to redeem the share of his mother's property which brought him in a small income.
That it had been carefully tied up was not, he thought, enough to guard it from the Blake extravagance and ingenuity in raising money.
Afterward the Colonel had brought him up and sent him into the army, doing so with a generous affection which was very different from cold charity, and which demanded some return.