"Cannot come East!" he muttered to himself. "What's the use of reading on? She will not—and that's just where it is." And yet he read.
"Papa is not strong this spring; not at all able for the journey; and I cannot leave him alone. He says 'Go'—but I cannot, Magnus. Not this year." ("Bless her for that!") Magnus interlined. "But the girls are to see everything, and remember everything, and tell it all to me; and maybe when you graduate we can all be there."
"I think I will not write any more to-day, because I cannot talk of anything but this; and it is not best to say too much. But we are fighting in the same field, Magnus, even if we are out of sight of each other, and we get our orders from the same King. How I have thought over and over, the seeing you at parade! I felt sure I could always pick you out from all the three hundred. Good-bye.—Your Cherry."
It was well for Magnus that he had little time to brood over his disappointment. June was near at hand, some few "planks" of the Board of Visitors already arriving, and some last study to be done.
"You bone straight on through the year," Randolph said to him one day. "Why, in life, man, don't you let up, now and then?"
"I'm after another bone," Magnus answered him. But he did not say that when the "standing" roll came to the hand he loved best, her eyes must find the name of Charlemagne Kindred as high as it could possibly be.
"Just as high as I can put it," he told himself, with a fresh rush at everything. For faith does not spoil a man, nor holy living mar his scholarship.
So Magnus studied, and played tennis, and ran races; did exploits on the poles and ropes, and threw everybody who dared wrestle with him; won his marks, kept his chevrons, and did not lose his popularity.
But disappointments are said to hunt in couples. The next week after Cherry's letter of bad news, came one from Mrs. Kindred, with addition to the same. For she, too, must stay at home.
"Cherry wants my help in every way," wrote the mother. "I must stay with her. And it is really better, dear, on all accounts. For if I live till next June, I must go then to see you graduate,—and two such journeys cost."