The Best Policy

“Next year,” he said, “I hope to get out of this city turmoil and take you away to some quiet place, where we can live for each other and the baby.”

She went over and knelt beside him, as he leaned wearily back in his big arm-chair.

“Why not now?” she pleaded.

“My God! I can’t, Helen!” he cried. “I want to, but I can’t! If you only knew – ”

“I only know that you will break down, if you don’t take a rest,” she interrupted hastily. It would only add to his distress to learn that she knew his secret. “Don’t you suppose I can see how you are overtaxing your strength? We must go away for a time, anyway.”

“Little woman,” he said, putting an arm round her, “it’s a question of finance, and you never could understand that very well. When I get things in shape we will go, but not yet. I have some investments to watch, and,” – wearily, – “things have gone rather against me lately. There are lots of things to be done before I can take any extended vacation, and it is even a more serious matter to retire permanently. My earning capacity is about all we have to live on now.”

“I thought you had money invested,” she remarked.

“I had,” he replied, “but it was not enough, and in trying to make it enough I made some wrong guesses on the market.”

“Never mind,” she said cheerily. “We’ll make the best of what’s left. We won’t need much if we get away from this fearful life. It isn’t money that the baby and I want, it’s you; and we don’t want you to die for us, but to live for us.”

Wentworth gave his wife a quick glance, for this was hitting very close to his secret; but he saw in her only the very natural anxiety of a loving wife, who knew that her husband was overtaxing his strength.

“You mean well,” he said, “but you don’t know.”

Mrs. Wentworth was not a business woman, and she knew little of her husband’s affairs, but she had a feeling that this question of life insurance was all that stood in the way of the precautions that he ought to take. He could get something for his interest in the business, if he retired, but not enough to make proper provision for her. He could take up some quiet pursuit and continue to make a little money as long as he lived, but he could leave only the most trifling income. And, in his efforts to improve matters, he had only made them worse. She understood so much.

There was an undercurrent of sadness, but still something beautiful, in the life that followed this conversation. All the little sympathetic attentions that love can suggest, each gave to the other, while each worried in secret, seeking only to make life a little easier and more cheerful for the other.

But Mrs. Wentworth was becoming as desperate as her husband, and even more unreasoning. Was not her husband’s life worth all the money of all the insurance companies? And were they not condemning him to death by their action? It was more than a risk that depended upon life; it was a life that depended upon the risk. In a little time she convinced herself that the insurance companies could save him and would not, failing utterly to appreciate the fact that, even with the greatest precautions, the chances were against him; that there was only a possibility that he might live longer than a few years, the probability being quite the reverse.

Murray was shocked when she called to see him again. The change in her husband was no greater than the change in her. Was not the man she loved committing suicide before her eyes? And was he not doing this for love of her and the baby? Would not such a condition of affairs make any woman desperate and unreasoning?

“Mr. Murray,” she said, “if you are as good a friend to my husband as he has always been to you, you will save his life.”

“I will do anything in my power, Mrs. Wentworth,” replied Murray. “Nothing in life ever has so distressed me as this.”

“Then give him the policy he wants.”

“Impossible! Why, the doctor – ”

“You can fix it with the doctor; you know you can! Or you can get another doctor to pass him! Oh, Mr. Murray! I am not asking for money; I am asking for life – for his life! It’s suicide – murder! I want to get him away! I must get him away! But I can’t while he fears for our future – the baby’s and mine! He must provide for us, and he’s losing the little he had! He can’t stand it a month longer! Give him the policy, Mr. Murray, and I’ll swear to you never to present it for payment! It’s only for him that I ask it! You can give him life – give your friend life! Won’t you do it?”

The tears were running down the little woman’s cheeks, and Murray could not trust himself to speak for a moment.

“Mrs. Wentworth,” he said at last, “every cent I have is at your husband’s disposal, if he needs it, but what you ask is utterly impossible. The risk would be refused at the home office, even if I passed it, for the fact that he has been refused by two other companies would be reported there.”

In the case of another, Murray would have said more, but he knew that Mrs. Wentworth was quite beside herself and did not really appreciate that she was asking him to be dishonest with the company that employed him.

“He wouldn’t touch a cent of the money of such a friend!” she exclaimed with sudden anger. “He’s not a beggar, and neither am I! All I seek for him is the tranquility that means life; all I ask is the removal of the anxiety that means death. And this little you will not do for a friend!” She was beside herself with desperation.

It was bitter, it was harsh, it was unjustifiable, but Murray had forgiven her before she had ceased speaking. The depth of her feeling and the excitement under which she was laboring were sufficient to excuse her. But he felt as if he really were condemning his friend to death. Yet what could he do? He would cheerfully give a thousand dollars out of his own pocket to make things easier for the two suffering ones, but it was not a matter of ready cash. Wentworth had enough of that.

In the deepest distress Murray was pacing back and forth when the door opened and Wentworth himself staggered in. Murray was at his side in a moment and guided him to a chair.

“What’s the matter, old man?”

“Lost everything,” Wentworth gasped. “Tried to protect – margined to limit – all gone!”

“But your interest in the business?”

“Sold it – to protect deal.” He seemed almost at the point of collapse, but he rallied for a moment. “Insurance!” he cried. “I must have it! Damn the company! You must put it through for me! You hear, Murray!” The man was almost crazy, and he spoke fiercely. “You’ve got to do it – for humanity’s sake! Can’t leave them penniless!”

“We’ll talk about it to-morrow,” said Murray soothingly.

“You lie, Murray!” the excited man cried. “You won’t do it at all; you’ll see them starve first, you – you dog! I’ll kill you, if you don’t – ”

Wentworth had risen in frenzied fury, as he pictured the future of his loved ones; he swayed for an instant, and Murray caught him as he fell. He was dead before Murray could get him back into the chair.

Murray did all that anyone could do for the bereaved woman, and more than any one else would have done, for the next day he sent her this letter:

Dear Mrs. Wentworth: After a conference with our physician we decided that a small risk on Mr. Wentworth would be justified, and the matter was closed up yesterday afternoon just previous to his death. As a result of my close personal relations with him, I know that he left his affairs in rather a complicated condition, so, as it will take a little time to file the necessary proofs and get the money from the company, I am taking the liberty of sending you my personal check for the amount of the policy, one thousand dollars, and I hope that you will not hesitate to call on me for any service that is in my power to render. With the deepest sympathy, I am,

    Very sincerely yours,
    David Murray.

“A lie,” he muttered, referring to the insurance item; “a cold, deliberate lie, but I feel better for telling it.”

AN INCIDENTAL SPECULATION

Just when the Interurban Traction Company thought the successful culmination of its plans in sight it woke up to the fact that there had been a miscalculation or an oversight somewhere. It had the absolute or prospective control of all the principal lines embraced in its elaborate scheme of connecting various towns and cities by trolley, which means that it had bought a good deal of the necessary stock and had options on most of the rest; but there was one insignificant little road that it had left to the last. This road had been a losing venture from its inception, and its stock was quoted far below par, with no buyers. As a matter of business policy, the more successful roads should be secured first, for the moment the secret was out their stocks would soar. They represented the larger investments, and their stock-holders could hold on, if they saw the advisability of it, without making any financial sacrifice; they were in a position to “hold up” the new company in the most approved modern style. But the Bington road was weak and unprofitable, valuable only as a connecting link in the chain.

“Of course,” said Colonel Babington, who was at the head of the new venture, “we’re sure to be held up somewhere on the line, and these people can hold us up for less than any of the others. They haven’t much as a basis for a hold-up, and they can’t afford to go on losing money. We can buy their road cheap the first thing, but the discovery of the purchase will give our plans away and add a million dollars to the cost of carrying them out. Any fool would know that we were not buying that road for itself alone. Why, the mere rumor that negotiations were opened would add fifty or a hundred per cent. to the value of the other stocks we want. We can’t afford even to wink at that road until we get control of the others.”

So they went about their work very secretly, hoping so to conceal their design that they would be able to get the last link at the bed-rock price; but, when the time came, entirely unexpected difficulties were encountered. The stock-holders might have been tractable enough, but the stock-holders themselves had been fooled.

“Why, there was a young fellow here last week,” they explained, “and he got a sixty-day option on enough stock to control the road.”

“Who was he?” asked the startled Colonel Babington.

“His name is Horace Lake,” they told him.

“I’ll have to look Horace up,” remarked the colonel thoughtfully.

Meanwhile, Horace was congratulating himself on having done a good stroke of business, and further amusing himself by figuring his possible profit.

“I’ve been looking for just such a chance as this,” he told Dave Murray, the insurance man.

“Have you got the money to carry it through?” asked the practical Murray.

“I had enough to put up a small forfeit to bind the option and convince them that I mean business, and I don’t need any more,” returned Lake.