From room to room in the empty old house the brother and sister went silently or with low, half-whispered words. They moved softly, as if fearing to disturb some unseen tenant of those bare and dingy rooms. Often they paused, and, drawing close to each other, stood as if in the very presence of some spirit that was not of their material world. At last they came to the back porch, which was hidden from the curious eyes of any chance observer in the neighborhood by a rank growth of weeds and bushes and untrimmed trees.

As John Ward looked at his sister now, that expression of wondering amazement with which he had greeted her was gone. In its place there was gentle understanding.

With a little smile, Helen sat down on the top step of the porch and motioned him to a seat beside her. "Won't you tell me about it, John?" she said, softly.

"Tell you about what, Helen?"

"About everything--your life, your work, your friends." She made a little gesture toward the cottage next door.

They could see the white gable through the screen of tangled boughs.

"What is it that has changed you so?" she went on. "Your interests are so different now. You are so happy and contented--so--so alive--and I"--her voice broke--"I feel as if you were going away off somewhere and leaving me behind. I am so miserable. John, won't you tell me about things?"

"You poor old girl!" exclaimed John with true brotherly affection. "I've been a blind fool. I ought to have seen. That's nearly always the way, though, I guess," he went on, reflectively. "A fellow gets so darned interested trying to make things go right outside his own home that he forgets to notice how the people that he really loves most of all are getting along. It looks as though I have not been doing so much better than poor old Sam Whaley, after all."

He paused and seemed to be following his thoughts into fields where only he could go. Helen moved a little closer, and he came back to her.

"I never dreamed that you were feeling anything like this, sister. I knew that you were worried about father, of course, as we all are, but aside from that you seemed to be so occupied with your various interests and with McIver--" He paused, then finished, abruptly, "Look here, Helen, what about you and McIver anyway; have you given him his answer yet?"

"Has that anything to do with it?" she answered, doubtfully. "There is nothing that I can tell you about McIver. I don't seem to be able to make up my mind, that is all. But McIver is only a part of the whole trouble, John. Oh, can't you understand! How am I to know whether or not I want to marry him or any one else until--until I have found myself--until I know where I really belong."

He looked at her blankly for a second, then a smile broke over his face. "By George!" he exclaimed "that is exactly what I had to do--find myself and find where I belonged. I never dreamed that my sister might be compelled to go through the same experience."

"Was it your army life that helped you to know?"

His face was serious now. "It was the things I saw and experienced while in France."

"Tell me," she demanded. "I mean, tell me some of the things that you men never talk about--the things you were forced to think and feel and believe--that showed you your own real self--that changed you into what you are to-day."

And because John Ward was able that afternoon to understand his sister's need, he did as she asked. It may have been the influence of the old house that enabled him to lay bare for her those experiences of his innermost self--those soul adventures about which, as she had so truly said, men never talk. Certainly he could never have spoken in their home on the hill as he spoke in that atmosphere from which their father and his material prosperity had so far removed them. And Helen, as she listened, knew that she had found at last the key to all in her brother's life that had so puzzled her.

But after all, she reflected, when he had finished, John's experience could not solve her problem. She could not find herself in the things that he had thought and felt.

"If only I could have been with you over there." she murmured.

"But, Helen," he cried, eagerly, "it is all right here at home. The same things are happening all about us every day--don't you understand? The one biggest thing that came to me out of the war is the............