and children, plan for herself and children, even at this fearful time, for there was no one to do it for her, no one to relieve her of any part of the burden. The problem of the larder and the problem of burial would confront her simultaneously; she had to face these cold, hard, brutal facts, in spite of the grief and sorrow of the moment.
All this Ross saw and appreciated, and he gave his attention to various possible ways of raising the necessary money.
“Perhaps I can arrange it,” he said at last. “In what company is he insured?”
It proved to be his own company. Instantly, his talk with Murray flashed through his mind. “You are paid to protect your company, so far as lies in your power,” Murray had said. Absolute loyalty to its interests was imperative. Would it be honorable for him to enter into any arrangement with this woman that would cost his company money? Had he any right to do more than the company would do itself? What would be thought of an employee in any other line of business who advanced money that was to be used to the financial disadvantage of his employer, however proper it might be in the case of some one else?
“I can do nothing,” he announced shortly.
“Oh, Owen!” cried his wife reproachfully.
“It is impossible!” he insisted. “If it were a proper thing to do, Murray would do it for her himself.”
“Mr. Murray doesn’t understand the situation,” urged his wife.
“Murray would understand my situation and his,” he returned. “We are taking money from this company, we are its trusted agents, and we can not do anything that would be to its disadvantage. It is a matter of business integrity.”
The woman did not weep now, but the look she gave him haunted him all that night. And his wife’s entreaties and reproaches added to his unhappiness.
“Why, Jennie,” he explained, “I stand alone between the company and a loss of over four thousand dollars. I know that this man is dying; I know that, if I pay this premium, the company will have to pay out the full amount of the insurance within a few days; I know that the premiums paid to date amount to only about five hundred or six hundred dollars, which, under the terms of the policy, the woman will not wholly lose. For me, an employee, to conspire to get the rest of the money for her would be like taking it from the cash drawer. I won’t do it; I can’t do it after Murray’s talk to me to-day about business integrity!”
“The company can afford it,” persisted Mrs. Ross, “and the woman needs it so badly.”
“There are lots of companies and individuals who could afford to let the woman have five thousand dollars,” replied Ross.
Still, Mrs. Ross could not understand. If he had been willing to pay the premium to another company, why not to his own?
“Resign and pay it!” she exclaimed suddenly, feeling that she had solved the problem; but that was a greater sacrifice than he was prepared to make. He was sincerely sorry for the woman; the case was on his mind all the following morning; but Murray’s talk had made a deep impression. This was one of the severe temptations of the business – the more severe because there was no question of corruption, but only of sympathy, in it. Such, he had read, were the temptations that led men of the best intentions astray in many of the affairs of life.
He was thinking of this when he called to see the “sanctimonious optimist”; he was thinking of it when he advanced the arguments Murray had given him; he was still thinking of it when the man said he was almost convinced and would telephone him after talking with his wife. Consequently, this success failed to elate him.
“The law of humanity,” he told himself, “is higher and more sacred than the law of business.”
He had walked unconsciously in the direction of his father’s office, and, still arguing with himself, he went in.
“Father,” he said, “I want to borrow a hundred dollars.” The premium was a little more than that, but he could supply the remainder.
“For what?” asked the senior Ross.
“There is something I may wish to do,” was the enigmatical reply. “I will repay it as rapidly as possible.”
“Commissions few and small?” laughed the senior Ross. “Well, a young man never finds out exactly what he’s worth, while working for a relative or a friend, so this experience ought to be valuable.”
Still undecided, but with the money in his pocket, Ross left his father’s office and went to his own. He wanted to pay that premium, but it seemed to him a very serious matter, ethically and actually. The woman faced a future of privation; he faced what seemed to him a crisis in his business career. He revolted at the thought of being false to his employer, but to let the woman suffer would be heartless.
“A letter for you, Ross,” said one of the clerks, as he entered the office. “Your wife left it.”
He opened it with nervous haste, and a notice of a premium due dropped out.
“You must find some way to help this woman, Owen,” his wife wrote. “I went to see her to-day, and the situation is pitiable. She has used up every cent she had and is in debt. Her husband is conscious at intervals, and he looks at you so wistfully, so anxiously, that it makes your heart bleed. Oh! if I could only tell him that the insurance is all right! It would give him peace for the little time that is left to him on this earth. Owen! resign, if necessary, but do what I ask!”
Ross crumpled the note in his hand and walked into Murray’s private office.
“Mr. Murray,” he said, “please accept my verbal resignation.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Murray.
“I have no time to explain now,” said Ross. “I want to be released from my obligations to the company at once.”
“You’re excited,” said Murray. “Sit down! Now, what’s the matter?”
Ross hesitated a moment, and then blurted out the whole story.
“You wish to pay this premium?” asked Murray.
“I’m going to pay it!” said Ross defiantly. “It will stick the company for more than four thousand dollars, but I’m going to pay it!”
“And you wish to resign to do it honorably?”
“Yes.”
“Pay it!” said Murray. “But your resignation is not accepted. I wouldn’t lose such a man as you for ten times four thousand dollars.”
“It is all right?” asked Ross, bewildered.
“Of course it’s all right,” asserted Murray. “As a matter of sympathy and justice, it is not only right but highly commendable; as a matter of financial profit to you, it would be despicable. Pay that premium, and I tell you now that the company will never pay a death benefit with less hesitation than it will pay this one. What is one risk more or less? We do business on the general average, and any sum is well invested that uncovers so conscientious an employee. Pay it, and come back to me.”
Three minutes later, Ross, with the receipt in his pocket, was at the telephone.
“It’s all right,” he told his wife. “The premium is paid.”
“Oh,
