anding I tell you that you can't do it,--that it is n't the way."

"I 'm no good to any one," Arsdale complained dully. "I don't see why
it would n't be better for everyone if I just quit."

The word quit was a biting gnome to Donaldson.

"I know," he answered. "But it is n't right--all because you don't
know and you can't know what you 're quitting. You can't just look
around you and see. You wouldn't just be quitting the girl who perhaps
does n't need you, though you can't even tell that; you would n't be
quitting just your friends who can get along without you--though even
that is n't sure; you 'd be quitting the others, the unseen others, the
unknown others, who are waiting for you, perhaps a year from now,
perhaps twenty years from now, but in their need waiting for you. They
are waiting for you, understand, and for no one else. Just you, no
matter how weak you are, or how poor you are, or how worthless you are,
because it is you and no one else who will fit into their lives to help
complete them."

"I 'd bring nothing but trouble. I 've been no good to any one."

"You can't help being good to some one. Queer it sounds, but I believe
that's true. A man never lived, so mean that he didn't do good to some
one."

"You believe that?" demanded Arsdale.

"Yes. I know that. I know that, Arsdale!" he answered, his lips
tremulous, a deep-seated light in his eyes. "I know that you can't
possibly be so useless, so cowardly, so utterly bad, but what you 're
still more useless, still more of a coward, still worse when you quit!
Maybe we can't see how--maybe at the time we can't realize it, but it's
so. Some one will get at the good in us if we just fight along, no
matter how we may cover it up."

Arsdale straightened in his chair. His shaking fingers clutched the
chair arms. But the next second his face clouded.

"Tell me what good I 've done," he demanded aggressively.

Donaldson smiled. He could n't very well tell the man the details of
these last few days and what they meant to him, but they proved his
claim. Arsdale had been, if nothing else, a connecting link. It was
he, even this self-indulgent weakling, who had brought Donaldson to his
own, who had led Donaldson, through a series of self-revealing
incidents, to where he could stand quivering with the truth of life,
and give of his strength back to this man to pay the debt. Yes, he
knew what Arsdale had accomplished, and before he was through