But _it was not there_, and no amount of search, no shaking of handkerchiefs, or turning of pocket inside out could avail to find it. The letter was lost, and in the utmost consternation Juno returned to the parlor, appearing so abstracted as scarcely to be civil when Katy came down to see her; asking if she was going that night to Sybil Grandon’s, and talking of the dreadful war, which she hoped would not be a war after all. Juno was too wretched to talk, and after a few moments she started for home, hunting in her own room and through the halls, but failing in her search, and finally giving it up, with the consoling reflection that were it found in the street, no suspicion could fasten on her; and as fear of detection, rather than contrition for the sin, had been the cause of her distress, she grew comparatively calm, save when her conscience made itself heard and admonished confession as the only reparation which was now in her power. But Juno could not confess, and all that day she was absent-minded and silent, while her mother watched her closely, wondering what connection, if any, there was between her burning cheeks and the letter she had found upon the floor in her daughter’s room just after she had left it; the letter, at whose contents she had glanced, shutting her lips firmly together, as he saw that her plans had failed, and finally putting the document away, where there was less hope of its ever finding its rightful owner, than if it had remained with Juno. Had Mrs. Cameron supposed that Helen had already seen it, she would have returned it at once; but of this she had her doubts, after learning that “Miss Lennox did not go up stairs at all.” Juno, then, must have been the delinquent; and the mother resolved to keep the letter till some inquiry was made for it at least. And so Helen did not guess how anxiously the young man was anticipating the interview at Sybil Grandon’s, scarcely doubting that she would be there, and fancying just the expression of her eyes when they first met his. Alas for Mark, alas for Helen, that both should be so cruelly deceived. Had the latter known of the loving words sent from the true heart which longed for some word of hers to lighten the long march and beguile the tedious days of absence, she would not have said to Katy, when asked if she was going to Mrs. Grandon’s, “Oh, no; please don’t urge me. I would so much rather stay at home.” Katy would not insist, and so went alone with Wilford to the entertainment, given to a few young men who seemed as heroes then, when the full meaning of that word had not been exemplified, as it has been since in the life so cheerfully laid down, and the heart’s blood poured so freely, by the tens of thousands who have won a martyr’s and a hero’s name. With a feeling of chill despair, Mark listened while Katy explained to Mrs. Grandon, that her sister had fully intended coming in the morning, but had suddenly changed her mind and begged to be excused.