The Fruit of the Tree
by Edith Wharton
John Amherst, the reform-minded assistant manager at the Hanaford textile mills, meets trained nurse Justine Brent at the hospital bedside of Dillon, an injured mill worker. The two agree Dillon would be better off dead if he is deprived of his occupation, a conversation that unites them in their approval of euthanasia sets the action of the novel in motion.