They heard no more from the City Hall, but the suspense of the situation
was harrowing. Trina was actually sick with it. The terror of the thing
was ever at their elbows, going to bed with them, sitting down with them
at breakfast in the kitchen, keeping them company all through the day.
Trina dared not think of what would be their fate if the income derived
from McTeague's practice was suddenly taken from them. Then they would
have to fall back on the interest of her lottery money and the pittance
she derived from the manufacture of the Noah's ark animals, a little
over thirty dollars a month. No, no, it was not to be thought of. It
could not be that their means of livelihood was to be thus stricken from
them.
A fortnight went by. "I guess we're all right, Mac," Trina allowed
herself to say. "It looks as though we were all right. How are they
going to tell whether you're practising or not?"
That day a second and much more peremptory notice was served upon
McTeague by an official in person. Then suddenly Trina was seized with a
panic terror, unreasoned, instinctive. If McTeague persisted they would
both be sent to a prison, she was sure of it; a place where people were
chained to the wall, in the dark, and fed on bread and water.
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