I haven't the excuse of any great feeling in my case. She, the girl at
Cranston's, was leaving the Point on the morrow, and she said if all I
had sworn to her was true I would run the sentries that night to dance
with her at the hop. Of course, love does not set tests nor ask
sacrifices, but I had sworn that I had loved her, as I understood the
world, and I told her I would come. I came, and I was recognized as I
crossed the piazza to the ball-room. On the morning following I was
called to the office of the Commandant and was told to pack my trunk.
I was out of uniform in an hour, and that night at parade the order of
the War Department dismissing me from the service was read to the
assembled battalion.

[Illustration: We walked out to the woods.]

I cannot write about that day. It was a very bright, beautiful day,
full of life and sunshine, and I remember that I wondered how the
world could be so cruel and unfeeling. The other second classmen came
in while I was packing my things to say that they were sorry. They
were kind enough; and some of them wanted me to go off to New York to
friends of theirs and help upset it and get drunk. Their idea was, I
suppose, to show the authorities how mistaken they had been in not
making me an officer. But I could not be civil to any of them. I hated
them all, and the place, and everyone in it. When I was dismissed my
first thought was one of utter thankfulness that my grandfather died
before the disgrace came upon me, and after that I did not much care.
I was desperate and bitterly miserable. I knew, as the authorities
could not know, that no one in my class felt more loyal to the service
than myself; that I would have died twenty deaths for my country; that
there was no one company post in the West, however distant from
civilization, that would not have been a paradise to me; that there