Read "The Keeper of Conscience" by Israel Zangwill online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
What was to be done? An inspiration came to her in the shape of a pamphlet. Life Assurance! Ah, that was it. Scottish Widows' Fund! How peculiarly apposite the title. If her mother could be guaranteed a couple of thousand pounds, Death would lose its sting. Salvina carefully worked out all the arithmetical points involved, and discovered to her surprise that life assurance was a form of gambling. The Company wagered her that she would live to a certain age, and she wagered that she would not. But after a world of trouble in filling up documents and getting endorsers, when she went before the Company's Doctor she was refused. The bet was not good enough. "Heart weak," was the ruthless indictment. "You ought not to teach," the Doctor even told her privately, and amid all her consternation Salvina was afraid lest by some mysterious brotherhood he should communicate with the Board Doctor and rob her of her situation. She began praying to God extemporaneously, in English.
That was, for her, an index of impotence. She was at the end of her resources. She could see only a blank wall, and the wall was a great gravestone on which was chiselled: "_Hic jacet_, Salvina Brill, School Board Teacher, Undergraduate of London University. Unloved and unhappy."