ndifference. In his own
passion for individual liberty he neither demanded nor accepted
sympathy for personal misfortunes or mistakes, and in turn was loath to
trespass either upon the rights or duties of another, but his own life,
through the medium of the boy's sister, was so inextricably entangled
with this other that now he recognized the inevitability of such
interference. On his success or failure to arouse Arsdale largely
depended the happiness of the girl.

"No," he reflected aloud, "the question is n't how much punishment you
deserve, for the pain you suffer personally does n't, unfortunately,
remedy matters in the slightest. It wouldn't do you any good for me to
kick you about the room or I 'd do it. It would n't do you any good
for me to turn you over to the police or I 'd do that. You 're hard to
get hold of because there's so little left of you."

Arsdale made no reply. He remained motionless.

"But," continued Donaldson with emphasis, "that does n't make it any
the less necessary. You 've got to pull what is left together--you 've
got to play the man with what remains. You can't get all the
punishment you deserve and so you 've got to deserve less. This, not
for your own sake, but for the sake of the girl,--for the sake of the
girl you struck."

"Don't!"

Arsdale quailed. He glanced up at Donaldson with a look that made the
latter see again Barstow's dog Sandy as he had tottered in his death
throes. But the mere fact that the man quivered back from this
shameful thing was encouraging. It was upon this alone that Donaldson
based his hope, upon this single drop of uncorrupted Arsdale blood
which still nourished some tiny spot in the burned out brain.

"You must make such reparation as you can," continued Donaldson. "Your
life is n't long enough to do it fully, but you can accomplish
something towards it if you start at once."

Arsdale shook his head.

"It's all a beastly mess. It 's too late!"

Donaldson's lips tightened.

"Well," he asked, "if you are n't going to do what you can, what do you
propose?"

Thickly Arsdale answered,

"I know a way; I 'm going to pull out for the sake of Elaine!"

Donaldson started as at the cut of a whip-lash. Then he straightened
to meet face to face this new development. Somehow this contingency
had never occurred to him. Now for the moment it disarmed him, for it
brought him down, like a wounded bird, to the level of Arsdale himself.
As voi