f the night, more welcome in his present state of mind than
the gay scene he had left.

And this was all Katy had to carry to Helen, who beat the window pane
nervously, fighting back the tears wrung out by her disappointment, for
she had expected to see Mark once more, to bless him as a sister might
bless a brother, speaking to him words of cheer and bidding him go on to
where duty led. But he was not coming and she only saw him from the
carriage window, as with proud step and head erect he passed with his
regiment through the densely crowded streets, where the wailing cries
and the loud hurrahs of the multitude, which no man could number, rent
the air and told how terribly in earnest the great city was, and how
its heart was with that gallant band, their pet, their pride, sent forth
on a mission such as it had never had before. But Mark did not see
Helen, and only his mother's white face as it looked when it said "God
bless my boy" was clear before his eyes as he moved on through Broadway
and down Cortlandt Street, until the ferryboat received him, and the
crowd began to disperse.

There was more than one pillow wet with tears that night as mothers,
wives and sisters wept for the loved ones gone, but nowhere were sadder,
bitterer tears shed than in the silent chamber where Helen Lennox prayed
that God would guard that regiment and bring it back again as full of
life and vigor as it had gone away. For them all she prayed, in a
general kind of way, but there was one whose image was in her heart,
whose name was ever on her lip, breaking the silence of the room, which
echoed the name of Mark, who, could he have heard that prayer, would
have cast aside the heavy pain, so hard to bear during those first days
when his cruel disappointment was fresh and the soldier duty new.

Now that Mark was gone, Mrs. Banker turned intuitively to Helen, finding
greater comfort in her quiet sympathy than in the more wordy condolence
offered by Juno, who as she heard nothing from the letter, began to lose
her fears of detection and even suffer her friends to rally her upon the
absence of Mark Ray and the anxiety she must feel on his account.
Moments there were, however, when thoughts of the stolen letter brought
a pang, while Helen's face was a continual reproach, and she was glad
when toward the first of May her rival left New York for Silverton,
where, as the spring and summer work came on, her services were needed.

CHAPTER XXXI.