With his anxiety about Helen Northrup removed, Manly gave attention to Brace. Brace puzzled him. He acknowledged that Northrup had never looked better; the trip had done wonders for him. Yes; that was it--something rather wonderful had been done. He attacked Northrup one day in his sledge-hammer style. "What in thunder has got mixed up in your personality?" he asked. "Oh! I suppose anxiety about Mother, Manly. And the thought that I had slipped from under my responsibilities. Had she died--well! it's all right now." But this did not satisfy Manly. "Hang it all, I don't mean anxiety," he blurted out. "The natural stuff I can estimate and label. But you look somehow as if you had been switched off the side track to the main line." "Or the other way about, old man?" Northrup broke in and laughed. "No, sir; you're on the main line, all right; but you don't look as if you knew where you were going. Keep the headlight on, Brace." "Thanks, Manly; I do not fully understand just where I may land, but I'm going slow. Now this--this horror across seas----" Always it was creeping in, these days. "Oh! that's their business, Northrup. They're always scrapping--this isn't our war, old man," Manly broke in roughly, but Northrup shook his head. "Manly, I cannot look at it as a war--just a plain war, you know. I've had a queer experience that I will tell you about some day, but it convinced me that above all, and through all, there is a Power that forces us, often against our best-laid plans, and I believe that Power can force the world as well. Manly, take it from me, this is no scrap over there, it's a soul-finder; a soul-creator, more like. Before we get through, a good many nations and men will be compelled to look, as you once did, at bare, gaunt souls or"--a pause--"set to work and make souls." Manly twisted in his seat uneasily. Northrup went on. "Manly"--he spoke quietly, evenly--"do you remember our last talk in this office before I left?" "Well, some of it. Yes." "Jogs, you know. Mountain peaks, baby hands, women faces, and souls?" "Oh! yes. Sick talk to a sick man." Manly snapped his fingers. "Manly, what did you mean by saying that you had once seen your soul?" Northrup was in dead earnest. Manly swung around in his swivel chair. "I meant that I saw mine once," he said sharply, definitely. "How did it look?" "As if I had neglected it. A shrunken, shivering thing." Manly stopped suddenly, then added briefly: "You cannot starve that part of you, Northrup, without a get-back some day." "No. And that's exactly what I am up against--the get-back!" After that talk with Manly, Northrup, singularly enough, felt as if he had arrived at some definite conclusion; had received instructions as to his direction. He was quietly elated and, sitting in his office, experienced the peace and satisfaction of one who spiritually submits to a higher Power.