“Oh, dear me!” he groaned again, and went to close the door which he had thoughtlessly left open when he came into the room. But, to his dismay, before he closed it he heard Mrs. Savage’s still sonorous voice in the hall downstairs: “No, don’t bother him. Harlan’s enough to get me home. But if _I_ had a daughter-in-law with tantrums I’d mighty soon cure her.” At that point Dan shut the door hurriedly, and went back to the bedside. “Lena,” he said, in great distress, “if you won’t eat anything, I just don’t see what I can do!” “You don’t?” she asked, and turned to look at him. “It seems to me nothing could be simpler. You know perfectly well what you can do.” “What?” “Take me out of this. Keep your promise to me and take me abroad.” “But I _can’t_, dearie,” he explained. “You see I didn’t realize it was a promise exactly, and now it’s just out of the question. You see everything we’ve got is in Ornaby Addition and so——” “Then sell it.” “What? Why, I wouldn’t have anything left at all if I did that at this stage of the work. You see——” “Then put a mortgage on it. People can always get money by mortgages.” Dan rubbed his forehead. “I’ve already got a mortgage on it,” he said. “That’s where the money came from I’m workin’ with now.” He sighed, then went on more cheerfully. “But just wait till you see it, Lena. We’ll drive out there first thing to-morrow morning and you’ll understand right away what a big thing you and I own together. You just wait! Why, two or three weeks from now—maybe only two or three days from now—you’ll be as enthusiastic over Ornaby as I am!” He leaned over her, smiling, and took her hand. “Honestly, Lena, I don’t want to brag—I wouldn’t want to brag to you, the last person in the world—but honestly, I believe it’s goin’ to be the biggest thing that’s ever been done in this town. You see if we can only get the city limits extended and run a boulevard out there——” But here she startled him; she snatched her hand away and burst into a convulsive sobbing that shook every inch of her. “Oh, dear!” she wailed. “I’m trapped! I’m trapped!” This was all he could get from her during the next half hour; that she was “trapped,” repeated over and over in a heartbroken voice at intervals in the sobbing; and Dan, agonized at the sight and sound of such poignantly genuine suffering, found nothing to offer in the way of effective solace. He tried to pet her, to stroke her forehead, but at every such impulse of his she tossed away from his extended hand. Then, in desperation, he fell back upon renewed entreaties that she would eat, tempting her with appetizing descriptions of the food he had brought and, when these were so unsuccessful that she made him carry the untouched tray out into the hall and leave it there, he returned to make further prophecies of the restorative powers of Ornaby Addition.