With a monotonous sameness the days now came and went, people still shunning the house as if the plague was there. Once, Bell Cameron came round to call on Helen, holding her breath as she passed through the hall, and never asking to go near Katy’s room. Two or three times, too, Mrs. Banker’s carriage stood at the door, and Mrs. Banker herself came in, appearing so cool and distant that Helen could scarcely keep back her tears as she guessed the cause. Mark, too, was in the city, having returned with the Seventh Regiment; but from Esther, Helen learned that he was about joining the army as captain of a company, composed of the finest men in the city. The next she heard was from Mrs. Banker, who, incidentally, remarked, “I shall be very lonely now that Mark is gone. He left me to-day for Washington.” There were tears on the mother’s face, and her lip quivered as she tried to keep them back, by looking from the window into the street, instead of at her companion, who, overcome with the rush of feeling which swept over her, laid her face on the sofa arm and sobbed aloud. “Why, Helen! Miss Lennox, I am surprised! I had supposed—I was not aware—I did not think you would care,” Mrs. Banker exclaimed, coming closer to Helen, who stammered out, “I beg you will excuse me, I cannot help it. I care for _all_ our soldiers. It seems so terrible.” At the words “I care for _all_ the soldiers,” a shadow of disappointment flitted over Mrs. Banker’s face. She knew her son had offered himself and been refused, as she supposed; and she believed too that Helen had given publicity to the affair, fueling justly indignant at this breach of confidence and lack of delicacy in one whom she had liked so much, and whom she still liked, in spite of the wounded pride which had prompted her to appear so cold and distant. “Perhaps it is all a mistake,” she thought, as she continued standing by Helen, “or it may be she has relented,” and for a moment she felt tempted to ask why her boy had been refused.