ome power outside himself which
should be operative even against his will; which should be as final as
death itself. Until to-night this had seemed an impossibility. Now,
with that chief obstruction removed, he had but to consider the ethics of
the question.

In arguing with Barstow he had been sincere. He believed as he had said
that a man had the right to end the contract so long as he cheated no one
by so doing. All his life he had paid his way like a man, done his duty
like a good citizen, given a fair return for everything he took. He did
not feel himself indebted to his country, his state, his city, nor to any
living man or woman. In one form and another, he had paid. Few men
could claim this as sincerely as Donaldson. He had lived
conscientiously, so very conscientiously in fact that it was as much
rebellion against self-imposed fetters which now drove him on to an
opposite extreme as any bitterness against that society which had spurned
his idealism. He had refused to compromise and learned that the world
uses only as martyrs those who so refuse. The limitations of his nature
were defined by the fact that he withdrew from so self sacrificing an end
as that. But now if he demanded nothing more--if he was tired of this
give and take--why should he not balance accounts?

Chiefly because there would still be one week to account for--that last
week in which he should demand most. Like an inspiration came the
solution to this, the final difficulty; economically he was wasting a
life; very well, but if he could find a way of not wasting it, of giving
his life to another, then he would have paid even this last bill. In the
excitement of this new idea, he paced his room. If he could give his
life for another! But supposing this were impossible, supposing no
opportunity should offer, it would be something if he held himself open,
offered himself a free instrument of Fate. He could promise--and he knew
he could keep so sacred a promise as this with death approaching in so
inevitable a form,--he could promise to offer himself upon the slightest
pretext, recklessly and without fear, instantly and without thought, to
the first chance which might come to him to give his life for another.
That was the bond he would give to Fate--the same Fate which had produced
him--his life for the life of another. Let society use him so if such
use could be found for him. He would stand ready, would live up to the
spirit an