Ross began to speculate. The ignorant have strange ideas of insurance, and very likely this woman thought she could insure a dying husband. His backbone began to stiffen at once. Of course such a thing was actually, as well as ethically, impossible, but it was going to be a very difficult matter to explain it to her, and he anticipated a distressing scene. His wife was interested in the woman, spoke frequently of her hardships and her courage, and had helped her to such trifling extent as they could afford. No doubt the woman had some wild notion that he, being an insurance man, could do this for her and would do it as a matter of charity. Ethical questions do not trouble such people.
When she came, he was prepared for a request that was impossible in honor and in fact, and he was ready to refuse it with such gentleness as he deemed due to a weary and desperate woman who did not realize what she was asking—the gentleness of sympathy coupled with the firmness of principle. Ross was a young man, inclined to exaggerate the importance and difficulties of problems that confronted him, and he was disconcerted when he found he had made an error in the basis from which he had reached his conclusion; the woman did not wish to insure a dying husband, but to protect insurance he already carried.
“Oh, good Mr. Ross,” she wailed, “you must fix it for me some way. If we don’t pay to-morrow, we’ll lose everything. And we haven’t the money, Mr. Ross, not enough to pay the doctor even, and it’s worrying Peter more than the sickness. But you can fix it for us—of course you can fix it for us,”—with appealing hopefulness.
“Sit down, Mrs. Becker, and tell me about it,” he urged. “I don’t understand.”
She sank into a chair, and looked at him with anxious, tearful doubt and hope. Worn out with work and watching, she was a prey to conflicting emotions. Never doubting that he could help her, she feared he might refuse. Her anxiety was pitiable, and it was some time before he could get the details of the story from her. Finally, however, he learned that in more prosperous days her husband had insured his life for five thousand dollars, and, even in adversity, had succeeded in keeping up the payments, until stricken by this last illness. The sum he had saved up for the next premium—the one due the following day—had been used for medicines and other necessaries, and now he was near death. The doctor held out no hope; he might live a few days, but hardly more than that, for he was slowly but surely sinking. Until the previous night, when there came a turn for the worse, his recovery had been confidently expected, and his wife had worried little about the premium; the insurance company would be glad to take it when he was well.
“But he worried,” she said with unconscious pathos; “he worried and asked about it until—he couldn’t any more. He’s too sick to know now. But,”—hopefully,—“he’ll understand when I tell him it’s all right.”
Ross was as much distressed as the woman, but he could give her little comfort. He could protect the insurance only by paying the premium himself, and he was not able to do that. Still, almost all policies provided for the payment of something proportionate to the amount paid in, even when the premiums were not kept up, so—He paused uncomfortably at this point, for the woman’s attitude and expression had changed from tearful anxiety to dull, sullen suspicion. She did not believe him; like all insurance men, he was ready to seize any opportunity to defraud her; she was helpless, and a rich company would take advantage of her helplessness.
“You can get the money, Owen,” his wife urged, almost in tears herself.
