The Golden Web

"The Golden Web" by E. Phillips Oppenheim is a story focusing on the dangerous crossroads of wealth, desperation, and moral choices in the early 1900s. Stirling Deane, a rich mining corporation director, finds his life tangled with Basil Rowan, a man returning from Africa, whose fate teeters on the edge. The story kicks off with a face-off between the successful Deane and the ruined Rowan, emphasizing their contrasting situations and the themes of success and failure. As Rowan reveals his terminal illness and need for money, having taken a possibly illegal way out of his situation, a maze of loyalty, desperation, and consequence unfolds, creating a tense and complicated situation for everyone involved.