"My father was a famous doctor here in New York," Mrs. Cleaver began. "He was what you call a self-made man; he had risen from obscurity and pulled my mother up with him. I was their only child. When I was growing up my father was making a princely income, and we lived like millionaires. The best people in New York were among his patients, and we went everywhere.

"I married at twenty—the usual fashionable marriage. Mr. Cleaver was the last of a fine old family of wealth and position, and I was considered to have done well for myself. But I loved him in a heedless, unthinking sort of way. He was young like myself, and extremely good-looking.

"My first real experience of life came with the death of my father, four years after my marriage. It was discovered that he had lived up to every cent of his great income. He left nothing but debts and an art collection. The proceeds of that went to purchase my mother a modest annuity. Even that was wasted, for she lived less than a year after my father.

"That left me with no one in the world to turn to but my husband. The tragedy of self-made people is that they have no lifelong friends. My husband was good to me in his way; we got along together well enough, but in his disappointment and chagrin at the disclosure of my father's affairs, I received my first suspicion that all was not well with our own.

"But I closed my eyes to it, and we continued to live as before, denying ourselves nothing. It was the only way I knew how to live. We had our big houses in town and in the country, a mob of servants, automobiles, horses. I knew nothing about business and my husband never spoke of it. One thing that helped to ease my mind was the fact that we were never bothered by creditors as I knew some of my friends were. My husband paid up everything on the nail. It was a point of pride with him.

"When he had spent his last dollar, literally his last, he shot himself.

"Well, there I was. Mr. Cleaver had no near relatives. His cousins had always frowned on our extravagance, and I could expect no aid from them. As for my so-called friends, at the first hint of disaster they began to melt away. I was so helpless I didn't even know how to close up my great house. I couldn't summon resolution enough to discharge the servants. I lived for a while on the proceeds of my dresses and jewels. It is tragic how much such things cost, and how little they bring!

"I was at the end of my rope, driven nearly frantic by worry. The unpaid servants were becoming impudent, and that seemed like the last straw. I have always been so dependent on servants! I was actually considering taking my husband's way out—when this man came to see me.

"He sent up no name. But in the frightful state I was in, one jumps at anything for a moment's distraction. I had him brought up. You have already described him; his silvery hair, brushed in an odd way, his sober, well-made clothes of no particular style. His old-fashioned manner prevented me from placing him socially; he might have been almost anybody. The piercing blue eyes were remarkable. His was most kind and courteous, fatherly one might say.

"Though it is three years ago, every detail of that interview is still fresh in my mind. He thanked me first for my indulgence in consenting to receive him incognito. I would agree, he said, when I had learned the object of his visit, that it were better he should remain unknown. He asked me to think of him simply as 'Mr. B.'

"He went on to say that through mutual friends he had learned of my difficult situation, and had been much moved thereby. It was the hardest case he had ever heard of, he said, and I had his sincerest sympathy. I was too desperate in my mind to even pretend to be indignant at the intrusion of a stranger into my affairs. Indeed I found his sympathy comforting. I hadn't received much. Most people had acted as if my misfortunes were due to my own fault. He soothed me like a nice old uncle.

"He said he was a very rich man, so rich in fact, that his money made him uneasy. He didn't want to die with it, he said, and he was looking around for some honorable way of getting rid of it. He used that very word, 'honorable'; it made me smile. He said it was easier to make a fortune than to get rid of it.

"Fancy how my heart began to beat at this. When one is desperate one cannot be particular. I could scarcely believe my ears. It seemed like the miracle I had been hoping for—like an answer to my prayer. He said that the more popular forms of philanthropy, such as colleges, hospitals, libraries, etc., were distasteful to him, as smacking too much of ostentation and publicity. He wanted to make his distribution in secret.

"'Everybody looks after the poor,' he said, 'and nobody thinks of the rich when they are overtaken by misfortune. They are the worthiest objects of help, and I intend to devote myself to the relief of the impoverished rich. You are my first case. Will a thousand dollars a week be sufficient?'

"I thought I was dreaming. I managed to stammer out a question about what conditions were attached to the loan or gift.

"'No conditions! No conditions!' he said,—'that is only one condition; that you will preserve absolute secrecy concerning it.'

"I promised of course. I scarcely knew what I was saying. I thought perhaps he was harmlessly insane. I certainly never expected anything to come of it. But when he had gone I found on the table a little packet containing a thousand dollars in bills.

"I still thought I had been visited by an amiable lunatic. I used the money to pay some of my most pressing obligations. I discharged the insolent serv............