Juno did not mean to keep the letter, and all that morning she was devising measures for making restitution, thinking once to confess the whole, but shrinking from that as more than she could do. As they were driving home, they met Mark Ray; but Helen, who chanced to be looking in an opposite direction, did not see the earnest look of scrutiny he gave her, scarcely heeding Juno, whose voice trembled as she spoke of him to Helen and his intended departure. Helen observed the tremor in her voice, and pitied the girl whose agitation she fancied arose from the fact that her lover was so soon to go where danger and possibly death was waiting. In Helen’s heart, too, there was a pang whenever she remembered Mark, and what had so recently passed between them, raising hopes, which now were wholly blasted. For he _was_ Juno’s, she believed, and the grief at his projected departure was the cause of that young lady’s softened and even humble demeanor, as she insisted on Helen’s stopping at her house for lunch before going home. To this Helen consented—Juno still revolving in her mind how to return the letter, which grew more and more a horror to her. It was in her pocket, she knew, for she had felt it there when, after lunch, she went to her room for a fresh handkerchief. She would accompany Helen home,—would manage to slip into the library alone, and put it partly under a book, so that it would appear to be hidden, and thus account for its not having been seen before. This seemed a very clever plan, and with her spirits quite elated, Juno drove round with Helen, finding no one in the parlor below, and felicitating herself upon the fact that Helen left her alone while she ran up to Katy. “Now is my time,” she thought, stealing noiselessly into the library and feeling for the letter.