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 make a man feel that you know! But the hellish smoke-hunger--you don't know anything of that." "It's a part of the same hellish selfishness which eats the vitals out of everything. Get out of yourself, get into the lives of others, and the smoke-hunger will quit you. You could n't go down where you 've been and made a beast of yourself if you cared more about others than yourself. The power that drove you down there would n't mean anything if a stronger power held you back. The point is, Arsdale, the point is, that all by himself a man is n't worth much. He does n't count. Either he dries up or he rots." "That's true! That's true!" answered Arsdale. "And I 've rotted. If only I had found you a year ago!"