"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.