trying to get him to renew it himself before he leaves town with his wife, who is sick.
"There is no use playing ostrich because a storm is coming. Keep a stiff upper lip and get mad! If we keep mad enough, we can weather this crisis and we know nothing worse can happen.—Yours to the last ditch, H. B."
Taylor looked up, brows gathered, eyes reflecting the bewilderment that had come over him.
"—nothing worse can happen," he quoted, looking again at the page.
She began to speak, but he could not hear her.
Nothing worse could happen! Ah, the chincanery of Jim Harris, the scheming of these backwoods politicians, the misfortune of having her mortgage in unsympathetic hands were inconsequential details compared to what he had to tell her.
Her words swam into his consciousness:
"—so I've thought all along it was something to meet—later. I might have known that they wouldn't delay, that it would come now, not next month, not next year—but somehow," spreading her hands "I haven't had the courage to bring it close and tell myself that the danger was here—and real. I've grown a little tired like my father grew tired; I've had a lot to meet—and now this comes—"
Her eyes were very wide as she looked into his and shook her head slowly; her chin trembled.
"And this other—if I can't renew that mortgage—" with a helpless lift of one hand. "Twenty thousand dollars! I couldn't raise a thousand! And my father's work—our hopes—oh, I feel so much alone!"
Her arms were half extended as she stopped. She
