"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?"