s read, when a rapid step
warned her some one was coming, and hastily thrusting the letter in her
pocket, she dropped her veil to cover her confusion, and then confronted
Helen Lennox, ready for the drive, and all unconscious of the wrong
which could not then be righted.

Juno was unusually kind and familiar that morning, delicately
complimenting Helen's taste with regard to pictures, and trying in
various ways to forget the letter which lay upon her conscience like
a leaden weight, driving all other thoughts from her mind, and leaving
only the torturing one, "How can I return it without detection?" Juno
did not mean to keep the letter, and all that morning she was devising
measures for making restitution, even 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 face was all ablaze with guilt as she
returned his bow, and 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 were waiting.
In Helen's heart, too, there was a cutting 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 humbled 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 yet, 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
it not having been seen before; or better yet, she would catch it up
playfully and banter Helen on her carelessness in leaving her love
letters so exposed. This last seemed a very clever plan, and with her
spirits quite elated, Juno drove around with Helen, finding no one in
the parlor below, and felicitating herself upon