It contained a brief note, to this effect:
"A recent trial indicates that Mr. Stirling needs neither praise not reward as incentives for the doing of noble deeds.
"But one who prefers to remain unknown cannot restrain her grateful thanks to Mr. Stirling for what he did; and being debarred from such acts herself, asks that at least she may be permitted to aid him in them by enclosing a counsel fee for 'the case of the tenement children of New York against the inhumanity of men's greed.'
"September third."
Peter looked at the enclosure, and found it was a check for five hundred dollars. He laid it on his desk, and read the note over again. It was beyond question written by a lady. Every earmark showed that, from the delicate scent of the paper, to the fine, even handwriting. Peter wanted to know who she was. He looked at the check to see by whom it was signed; to find that it was drawn by the cashier of the bank at which it was payable.
Half an hour later, a rapid walk had brought him to the bank the name of which was on the check. It was an uptown one, which made a specialty of family and women's accounts. Peter asked for the cashier.
"I've called about this check," he said, when that official materialized, handing the slip of paper to him.
"Yes," said the cashier kindly, though with a touch of the resigned sorrow in his voice which cashiers of "family's" and women's banks acquire. "You must sign your name on the back, on the left-hand end, and present it to the paying-teller, over at that window. You'll have to be identified if the paying-teller doesn't know you."
"I don't want the money," said Peter, "I want to know who sent the check to me?"
The cashier looked at it more carefully. "Oh!" he said. Then he looked up quickly at Peter? with considerable interest, "Are you Mr. Stirling?"
"Yes."
"Well, I filled this up by order of the president, and you'll have to see him about it, if you want more than the money."
"Can I see him?"
"Come this way."
They went into a small office at the end of the bank.
"Mr. Dyer," said the cashier, "this is Mr. Stirling, and he's come to see about that check."
"Glad to see you, Mr. Stirling. Sit down."
"I wish to learn who sent the check."
"Very sorry we can't oblige you. We had positive instructions from the person for whom we drew it, that no name was to be given."
"Can you receive a letter?"
"That was forbidden too."
"A message?"
"Nothing was said about that."
"Then will you do me the favor to say to the lady that the check will not be cashed till Mr. Stirling has been able to explain something to her."
"Certainly. She can't object to that."
"Thank you."
"Not at all." The president rose and escorted him to the door. "That was a splendid speech of yours, Mr. Stirling," he added. "I'm not a bit ashamed to say that it put salt water in my old eyes."
"I think," said Peter, "it was the deaths of the poor little children, more than anything I said, that made people feel it."
The next morning's mail brought Peter a second note, in the same handwriting as that of the day before. It read:
"Miss De Voe has received Mr. Stirling's message and will be pleased to see him in regard to the check, at half after eleven to-day (Wednesday) if he will call upon her.
"Miss De Voe regrets the necessity of giving Mr. Stirling such brief notice, but she leaves New York on Thursday."
As Peter walked up town that morning, he was a little surprised that he was so cool over his intended call. In a few minutes he would be in the presence of a lady, the firmness of whose handwriting indicated that she was not yet decrepit. Three years ago such a prospect would have been replete with terror to him. Down to that—that week at the Pierce's, he had never gone to a place where he expected to "encounter" (for that was the word he formerly used) women without dread. Since that week—except for the twenty-four hours of the wedding, he had not "encountered" a lady. Yet here he was, going to meet an entire stranger without any conscious embarrassment or suffering. He was even in a sense curious. Peter was not given to self-analysis, but the change was too marked a one for him to be unconscious of it. Was it merely the poise of added years? Was it that he had ceased to care what women thought of him? Or was it that his discovery that a girl was lovable had made the sex less terrible to him? Such were the questions he asked himself as he walked, and he had not answered them when he rang the bell of the old-fashioned, double house on Second Avenue.
He was shown into a large drawing-room, the fittings of which were still shrouded in summer coverings, preventing Peter from inferring much, even if he had had time to do so. But the butler had scarcely left him when, with a well-bred promptness from which Peter might have drawn an inference, the rustle of a woman's draperies was heard. Rising, Peter found himself facing a tall, rather slender woman of between thirty-five and forty. It did not need a second glance from even Peter's untrained eye, to realize the suggestion of breeding in the whole atmosphere about her. The gown was of the simplest summer material, but its very simplicity, and a certain lack of "latest fashion" rather than "old-fashionedness" gave it a quality of respectability. Every line of the face, the set of the head, and even more the carriage of the figure, conveyed the "look of race."
"I must thank you, Mr. Stirling," she said, speaking deliberately, in a low, mellow voice, by no means so common then as our women's imitation of the English tone and inflexion has since made it, "for suiting your time to mine on such short notice."
"You were very kind," said Peter, "to comply with my request. Any time was convenient to me."
"I am glad it suited you."
Peter had expected to be asked to sit down, but, nothing being said, began his explanation.
"I am very grateful, Miss De Voe, for your note, and for the check. I thank you for both. But I think you probably sent me the latter through a mistake, and so I did not feel justified in accepting it."
"A mistake?"
"Yes. The papers made many errors in their statements. I'm not a 'poor young lawyer' as they said. My mother is comfortably off, and gives me an ample allowance."
"Yes?"
"And what is more," continued Peter, "while they were right in saying that I paid some of the expenses of the case, yet I was more than repaid by my fees in some civil suits I brought for the relatives of the children, which we settled very advantageously."
"Won't you sit down, Mr. Stirling?" said Miss De Voe. "I should like to hear about the cases."
Peter began a very simple narrative of the matter. But Miss De Voe interjected questions or suppositions here and there, which led to other explanations, and before Peter had finished, he had told not merely the history of the cases, but much else. His mention of the two Dooley children had brought out the fact of their visit to his mother, and this had explained incidentally her position in the world. The settlement of the cases involved the story of the visit to the brewer's home, and Peter, to justify his action, added his interview with his pastor, Peter's connection with the case compelled him to speak of his evenings in the "angle," and the solitary life that had sent him there. Afterwards, Peter was rather surprised at how much he had told. He did not realize that a woman with tact and experience can, without making it evident, lead a man to tell nearly anything and everything he knows, if she is so minded. If women ever really take to the bar seriously, may Providence protect