"I had heard," he said. "But I didn't dream it was as bad as this.... It is too late, then, you think--too late to do anything? I had thought that if we should wait--until she was tired--as such as she must tire sooner or later--" "Too late?" repeated Park. "It has always been too late. It was too late from the first. I was with him, you know." "Yes--abroad. I had forgotten." Parks exclaimed, almost fiercely: "I wish to God I could! He was a man, sir--a man!" Then, in quick transition: "I beg your pardon. But I was very fond of him." He placed the resignation that he had written fair in the center of the desk. He turned to go. Blake called after him: "You are leaving?" Parks nodded. "Don't you think you'd better stay a little longer? You can help him." Parks shook his head; there was in his voice a great sadness. "No one can help him now. It is too late.... Too late." [Illustration] CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE. THE THING THAT WAS A MAN. Schuyler came down the stairs slowly, leaning heavily against the broken balustrade. He laughed a little, wildly, with the mirthless chill that is of a maniac. His knees bent; he staggered.... And he laughed again.... At first Blake did not know him.... Then, knowing, he could not believe that his eyes brought to his brain the truth.... This was not John Schuyler. It could not be John Schuyler. It was not possible. John Schuyler was at least a man--not a palsied, pallid, shrunken, shriveled caricature of something that had once been human.... John Schuyler had hands--not nerveless, shaking talons.... This sunken-eyed, sunken- cheeked, wrinkled thing was not John Schuyler--this thing that crawled, quiveringly--from the loose, pendulous lips of which came mirth that was more bitter to hear than the sobs of a soul condemned. Blake's soul was curdled; his senses were numbed; but still his eyes could look. The ghastly figure stopped in the moonlight, at the landing of the stairs. White, claw-like hand clutched at the drunken curtain and ripped it from its fastenings. The pale light of the moon fell harsh upon it.... Blake shut his eyes.... When again he looked, the figure was at the desk, fumbling with a key.... A drawer screeched in protest. Came from it a rattling as a cadaverous hand drew forth a bottle.... And the thing that had been John Schuyler guzzled. It laughed again, then, in hollow, mad glee. It staggered forward. Its hollow eyes fell upon the letter that Parks had left. Clutching fingers unsteadily tore end from envelope--drew letter from covering, and hollow, leaden eyes gazed. Came another wild burst of laughter gone mad. A voice, thick, weak, muffled, weird, said: "Another enveloped insult. From Parks, the good and faithful Parks." Dull eyes read. "Your employment has become impossible." The letter fell to the floor; the voice cried: "The rats desert the sinking ship!" It chuckled: "Wise rats. Sensible rats!" And then dead eyes saw the man who stood before him.