the
latter should feel its effect.

"Man," answered Donaldson almost solemnly, "you have done your
good--even you, in spite of yourself."

"But not to Elaine where I should have done most!"

Donaldson's hand rested a moment on Arsdale's shoulder.

"Yes," he said, "I like to think you have been of some service even to
her."

Arsdale rose to his feet.

"If I could think that--if I could look her in the eyes again!"

"Look her in the eyes! Keep those eyes before you! Never get where
those eyes can't follow you! And as you look take my word for it that
even there by a strange chance you 've done your good."

The man in Arsdale was at the top. For a second he faced Donaldson as
one man should face another. Then he tottered and fell back in his
chair, covering his face with his hands.

"It's too late," he groaned, "God, it's too late!"

Donaldson seized him by the shoulder and dragged him to his feet--not
in anger, not in contempt, but in his naked eagerness to make the man
see. Half supporting him, he drew him to the window. He threw it wide
open.

"Too late!" he cried, waving his hand at the brisk scene upon the
street. "Too late! It is n't too late so long as there's a living
world out there, so long as there's a man or a woman out there! It
isn't too late because there's work for you to do, work for others that
you 've shirked. What is it? I don't know, but it's there. Dig
around until you find it. Maybe to-day it was only to give a nickel to
the blind beggar at the corner, maybe it was only to help an old lady
across the street, maybe it was to do some kindness to your sister. I
don't know what it was, but I know it was something, and went undone
because of you."

Arsdale, leaning against the window-sill, strained towards Donaldson.

"That's a queer idea," he whispered hoarsely.

"And another thing," continued Donaldson, "tangled up with those duties
are all the joys of the world. You 've been looking for them somewhere
else--I 've been looking for them somewhere else--but it is n't any
use. They are right there with your duties--in the keeping of other
people, the unseen others. And they couldn't be bought, not with all
the gold in the world. They must be given if you get them at all."

Arsdale was listening eagerly. It was as much the spirit back of the
words as the words themselves that made him feel the stirring of a new
power which was a new hope.

"You!" he exclaimed. "You