“Huh!” muttered Greg.  “We’ve got our start.  And it won’t be far to the end, either.  Cheer up, old man!”

At that instant the call for formation sounded.  The young men were ready and turned to leave the room on the jump.  As they did so, Greg muttered in a low tone: 

“Say nothing, but hold up your head and smile.  Don’t let anyone face you down.  Not ten fellows in the corps will even guess that you could possibly be guilty of anything mean!”

Wouldn’t they?  West Point cadets have such an utter contempt for anything savoring of cheating or lying that the mere suspicion is often enough to make them hold back.

As the cadets moved to their places in the formations scores of cadets passed Prescott.

Short as the time had been, the news was already flying through the corps.

Usually Dick had a score of greetings as made his way to his place in line.  Today dozen cadets who had been among his friends seemed not to see him.

Dick recoiled, inwardly, as though from a stinging blow in the face.  None of his comrades meant to be cruel.  But most of them wanted to make sure that the seemingly reliable charge was not true.  They must wait.

Utterly dejected, Prescott marched to dinner.  On his way back to barracks a new and overwhelming thought came to him.

Laura Bentley and her mother, and Belle Meade were due at the hotel the next afternoon, and he and Greg had arranged to drag the girls to the Saturday-night hop.

“Greg, I can’t leave quarters,” muttered Dick huskily, as he threw himself down at his desk and began to write rapidly.  “You’ll have to attend to sending this telegram for me.”

“On the jump!” assented Greg,

The telegram was addressed to Laura Bentley, and read: 

“Don’t come to West Point tomorrow.  My letter will explain.”

“I’ll send it before the drawing lesson,” Greg uttered, and vanished.

Confined to quarters in close arrest, Cadet Prescott put in more than two miserable hours endeavoring to get that letter written.  But he couldn’t get it penned.  Then a knock came the door, and a telegram was handed in.  It read: 

“Wife and girls have left for shopping trip in New York.  Don’t know where to reach them.”

It was signed by Dr. Bentley.  The yellow paper fluttered from Prescott’s hands to the floor.  Mechanically he picked it up and carried it to his study table.

“I can’t stop them,” he muttered dismally.  “Nor shall I be out of close arrest by that time, either.  There’s nothing I can do.  I can’t even see them—–­and I’ve been looking forward to this for months!”

Again Dick Prescott buried his head in his arms at the study table.  To have Laura come here at the time when he was in the deepest disgrace that a cadet may face!

Greg came back to find his chum pacing the floor in misery.