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.