Jeffrey's talk, though inconclusive, had stirred in John's mind an uneasiness which was near to apprehension.

He turned and walked about the familiar room, recognizing the well-known furniture, his mother's picture over the mantel, the bookshelves filled with his boyhood's accumulations, the well-remembered pattern of the carpet, and the wall-paper--nothing was changed.

It was all as he had left it two years ago, and for the time it seemed as if he had merely dreamed the life and experiences of those years.

Indeed, it was with difficulty that he recalled any of them for the moment.

And then suddenly there came into his mind the thought that he was at the beginning of a new epoch--that on this day his boyhood ended, for up to then he had been but a boy.