Magnus bent down, reverently touching his lips to the hand he held. "It's a pledge," he said. "I'll let Miss Flirt alone; help her, if I can. But Cerise, I only said _thought_. And I have not thought it any more since I have seen you again. You are certainly that salt, for me." "How did the class supper go off?" Cherry inquired, changing the subject. "You were full of it when you wrote last." "It went off," said Magnus soberly. "The crowd was there. And some of the crowd were too full of it afterwards. Don't speak about that; I'd like to forget it." She looked at him a little wonderingly, with that grave, earnest look which was so innocent of evil, but said no more. Magnus watched her for a minute, then gently laid back in her lap the hand he had been holding, and turned half away. "You want to hear about it," he said, "and you shall; it is best you should. Cherry, you know cadets are forbidden strong drink, in any shape, while they are at the Post?" She nodded. "Well, before furlough and before graduation, there is always a vote taken by each class,--'wet or dry,' for the class supper; shall they have wine--or shall they not? I have heard of one class who fought it through for temperance, and won. With, of course, a minority protest; but so really a minority that the other was counted as the class vote; and their names should be gold-starred in every register. Our class had no such proud distinction, nor the late first; and the usual results followed." "But Magnus!" The girl's colour changed so that he could not bear to look at her. "Yes?" he said, with a deep breath. "Ask any questions you like." "I cannot ask!" she cried in distress. "These men whom you praise so highly, who are so pleasant, so brilliant----" "Were under a cloud that night, some of them," said Magnus gravely. "They did not fall under the table, Cherry, but they did try to get upon it and harangue the world from thence. It took pretty forcible persuasions to keep some of them down." "Alas!" Cherry said, in a tone of sorrow and pity that might have gone to anybody's heart, her sweet eyes brimming over. "Oh, Magnus, what did the minority do?" Magnus glanced up at her. "Stood to their votes, some of them," he said; "and some did not. And of those last, Cherry, I was one." "_You_, Magnus?" The words came with such a cry that the young man felt as if he had been struck. Not another word followed, but he could see that she was trembling from head to foot. "Do not mistake me," he said gently. "I did not disgrace myself in any open way, but I did take more than was good for me. For the first, and for the last time, the Lord being my witness and my help." And now something in his words scattered the last show of Cherry's self-control. She exclaimed once more: "Oh, Magnus!"