She had made 15 per cent. in the last six months, and, aside from these threats, the business looked prosperous, for the orders were becoming more numerous every day. But the widow could refuse to sell only by braving threats which had broken more than two out of three of all the men about her. She put upon the property a price warranted by its income, $200,000, which was adopted by the directors of the company in a formal motion authorizing a sale at that figure. But in her name a proposition was made by the agent to sell for $71,000. "I never heard of the figure of $71,000," she says, "and cannot imagine where it originated. The only proposition that was ever made was that of $200,000." What the stock was worth in her estimation and that of her employés who had inside knowledge is seen in the evidence of her confidential clerk. Though he was her nephew also, he had with difficulty, he says, bought stock at par. She had refused to sell at par to others. Now the only offer she could get was $60,000 for the works and good-will, the purchasers paying in addition the cash value of the material in stock, and at that price she had to let them go. She asked to be allowed to remain an owner to the extent of $15,000 in the business into which she and her husband had built their lives. "No outsider can have any interest in this concern," was the reply. The combination "has dallied as long as it will over this matter," its agent continued. "It must be settled up to-day or go." The power of this business to produce a profit of $25,000 a year was worth almost $400,000, according to the valuations maintained for the stock of the oil trust on the New York Stock Exchange by the men who bought out the widow. One hundred dollars in oil trust stock producing $12 a year has sold as high as $185. If $12 a year was worth $185, $25,000 a year was worth nearly $400,000. It was part of the agreement that the oil company should go on as before. "It was particularly enjoined," testified the cashier and treasurer, "that the sale should be kept a profound secret."[117] It was intended that the company should go on as before as far as the public was concerned. The purchasers agreed to continue to employ the hands already at work, but stipulated that not a word should be said to any one of them to reveal that the company was not as independent as it had been.[118] "And you are not to engage in the refining business," is the concluding phrase of an agreement between the oil combination and a once competitor whom it had forced to sell out in 1876.[119] "You are not to engage in refining," the same power said in 1877 to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and now to this widow: You must sign this bond not to go into business again for ten years. The bond is given in full in the record of the case. It put the widow under a forfeit of five thousand dollars for ten years, that--