Came to Blake the thought that, even though Schuyler could not be redeemed to manhood, he might at least, be saved from death, or worse. He might at least be made again into the semblance of that which he had been. He started forward, hands gripping the edge of the desk, face close to Schuyler's own. "Jack!" he cried, commandingly. "Look here! I want to talk to you!" Schuyler slumped again into the depths of his chair. He looked up, dully. "Yes?" "Listen!" Blake demanded. "Listen closely. There's a chance for you yet! We'll take you away somewhere--for a year--five years--ten years. You can change your name--make a new start--build yourself a new character--a new honor. There's still happiness for you, Jack! We'll go and find it! Come! Shall we?" Schuyler answered, dully, with the petulance of the mentally unfit: "It's too late, I tell you--too late!" "It's not too late! You'll try! Come!" "It's too late, I say!" insisted Schuyler, thickly. "She's torn from me everything that makes life worth living. She's taken honor and manhood and self-respect--wife and child and friends--everything--everything but-- this!" He patted the bare bottle before him. And then: "Let's drink," he muttered. Blake sprang forward, desperation overwhelming him. "My God, this is awful!" he exclaimed. "Haven't you a spark of manhood left? no brains? no bowels? nothing a man can appeal to?" Schuyler repeated, dully: "Give me that bottle!" It was then that Blake came to that which he had mentally intended to be a last resort. Deliberately, not in anger, but in the desperation of a strong man who plays his last card for his ultimate stake, he leaned across the table and deliberately struck Schuyler in the face. It was a hard thing to do; but there are things that so demand. Blake knew that if this time he failed to arouse whatever of latent, atrophied manhood there might be in the breast of the other, that never again, probably, would the shrivelling brain come within call. So he struck; and, following the staggering form, struck again, flat on the face, with open hand, hard, stinging blows. And with these blows he cried, tensely: "If there's any spirit left in you, I'll arouse it. You pitiful thing that was once a man! You made in God's image? Why, there isn't a swine that wouldn't be ashamed to roll in the same gutter with you!" With stinging words and stinging blows, he pursued the stumbling figure across the room. Schuyler fell. Blake kicked him, sending foot against body, heavily. "Get up, you beast!" he ordered. And then, in the horror of it all--in the awful of horror of the hurt of the thing that he was doing: "Great God! Will nothing awaken you?"