But with that point settled, and a stand taken which Magnus knew would now, by the grace of God, be held till death; there came also a restless impatience to see Cherry again and know the worst—if worst it was to be. And so, when Mrs. Kindred bade him go up the hill after breakfast and see how Mr. Erskine fared after his walk, Magnus went off with the most eager alacrity.

He found the two over their reading, as on that first day. Mr. Erskine greeted him very warmly, Cherry gave a little cold, trembling hand, and no look at all.

"We were almost through our passage," Mr. Erskine said. "Will you sit down, my boy, and wait five minutes before we begin to talk?"

Magnus said truly that he should like very much to listen, and if Cherry opened her lips to say no, she thought better of it, and went straight on with her reading.

But it was with extreme difficulty; the voice shook and fell; more than once she stopped short for breath to go on, and at last, midway in a verse, the words faltered, broke, and after a moment's brave struggle, Cherry hid her face on her father's breast.

"My poor little girl!" he said soothingly, kissing the bowed head. "She is not herself, Magnus, this morning. Got up with a headache and a white face. I was quite troubled about her. And in some moods the words and imagery of the Bible search out all one's weak spots."

"I do not understand Greek, sir," said Magnus briefly.

"Oh, you do not? Then I should not have made you listen. I beg pardon. This was it,—a grand passage:

"'And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him; and they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.'"

"But you should not break down there, love. That is all victory."

"She was thinking of those who have not won it, sir," said Magnus.

"Perhaps—dear heart!" said her father. "Well, my boy, never do you be one of those. Fight the good fight, even on the smallest field. 'As a good soldier of Jesus Christ.'"

"I mean it, sir," Magnus answered gravely. "Mr. Erskine, what that girl needs is fresh air. If you will send her off for a good walk with me, I'll find a place in the woods where she can leave her headache. Do you want her to sputter Greek to you any longer?"

"'Sputter Greek!'" Mr. Erskine repeated. "Well, that certainly displays your knowledge of the language. Yes, go, love. I think Magnus is right."

"I know he is, this time," said that young man confidently. "I wish I could stay with you, Mr. Erskine, while she is gone, but then you see she wouldn't go. I'll stay as long as you like when we come back."

"I don't doubt it," said his friend, smiling. "I know you of old. 'Sputter Greek,' indeed! My Cherry, who has such a specially fine accent. I think she is very good to go with you at all."

"Cherry never thinks of herself, sir," said Magnus. "If you ask her this minute, she will tell you she has thought only of me, ever since I came in."

A quick, assenting colour leaped into the pale cheeks for a moment, as Cherry tied on her hat, but she said nothing; and Mr. Erskine was too well used to the chaffing between the two to do more than laugh at it.

So they went out into the perfect June day, slowly along amid hedgerows and flowers, bees, butterflies, and birds, to the edge of the shadowy woodland. For some reason of his own, Magnus had put on the grey that morning, and now as they went on, Cherry could not but notice and admire the free, regular step, and the easy exactness of the tall shadow that kept pace with her own. But he said nothing, nor did she, and once, glancing up at him from under her hat, she noted the deep quiet of his face—very, very grave, yet with a fine, clear steadfastness that seemed to herald victory from henceforth. A man's face now, a boy's no longer.

Absorbed as he appeared to be, Magnus must have been also watching her, for he caught the look.

"Yes?" he said. "What were you going to ask? Sit down, Cerise; here is a good place for you."

But he did not put himself at her feet, as yesterday, nor even close at her side, but on a grey rock a little way off; then threw his cap down on the grass, and sat watching her anxiously.

"What is it?" he said again. "Speak out all that is in your dear heart. You could not offend me, and hurts from you will only do me good."

Probably the "all" in Cherry's heart was a good deal, just then; for at first she could bring nothing out.

"I am not sure that I was going to say anything," she answered with effort.

"Well, you looked at me," said Magnus. "What was that for? To see what sort of a wild animal I had turned into since last night?"

"No, no! Oh, Magnus don't talk so. People may look at each other, I suppose."

"I suppose they may—and I have been looking at you. Cherry, have you been crying over me all night? Because, if you have, I might as well go and drown myself at once."

Cherry remarked logically that she did not see how that would help matters.

"They used to say you never cried," Magnus said reproachfully.

"Most women keep a few tears for special occasions," said Cherry, trying to speak lightly.

"Well, you have squandered your whole stock on me," said Magnus; "you don't look as if there could be one tear left. I'm not worth it, Cherry. Such a coward, such a careless fellow; yielding to temptation, and with only bravery enough left to own it. I wonder you should cry over him."

Plainly, the fountain had not yet run dry, for the girl looked at him with her eyes full.

"Oh, Magnus!" she cried, "why do you talk so? You break my heart."

"Well, you are breaking mine," said Magnus; "so we're quits."

"What have I done?" Cherry faltered.

"Thrown me off like a bad package. You didn't look at me when I came in, you hardly spoke to me. I suppose I deserve it, but that does not generally make things much easier."

"Just now you found fault with me for looking at you."

"Found fault, did I?" said Magnus. "I wonder you dare say such a thing to me."

"Well, remarked upon it, then," Cherry corrected herself.

"A man is pretty apt to remark upon the first gleam of anything like sunlight he has seen for twelve hours."

"Those twelve hours having come off chiefly in the night."

"Stop chopping logic with me! If I get cross there is no telling what I may do. Cherry, why don't you say out all the dreadful things at once, and have them off your mind?"

"But, I thought it was to cure my head you brought me here?"

"You did not think any such thing. You knew I had to have it out with you, some time, and now you will not let me do it. Never even gave me your hand when I came in, but just a little piece of ice."

"You are quite wild this morning," Cherry said, with the feeling that detachments were coming up faster than she could manage them.

"Men are apt to be, when they are waiting to be shot and the guns don't go off."

"But how do I hinder your having a talk?"

"It takes two to make a bargain, doesn't it? Oh, yes, I can talk on by myself, Saturdays and Sundays, and all the week, and tell the truth straight through. How lovely Cherry looks this morning! The first night I came back I found she had grown handsomer than I ever thought any woman could be, and I think so still. And there's not a girl in all the world that is half so good. And I never cared two straws for anybody else—and never shall. Never could, for that matter. And I've been a fool, and a poltroon, and anything else you like; and so she has thrown me off, and has no use for me any more. And it makes me just mad to sit here and think that I have lost her. And some day I shall get her wedding cards, with the name of some nice man who never tied his shoestrings in a hurry."

"Magnus, why, Magnus!" Cherry said, astonishment sending every other feeling to the rear. "What is the matter with you?"

"That."

"What has come over you?"

"This."

"But we cannot have our talk on such terms," said Cherry, catching her breath a little.

"They're the only terms we shall ever talk on again," said Magnus. "We always chose each other out, from the time we could walk; and I knew I loved you with all my heart when I went away. But the minute I saw you again, that first night, I knew that I never should—never could—love anybody else. Not if I lived to be nine hundred and ninety-nine, and you got in love with forty other men."

Cherry could not help laughing, in spite of herself, for sheer nervousness.

"I think that would cure you," she said.

"No, it wouldn't. I ought to know, after fighting the thing through all night."

"But, Magnus, we used to be just brother and sister," Cherry said very low.

"No, we didn't. Maybe you think so. We're not that now, anyway, and never shall be again. That was why I poured out the whole thing to you last night, and made you sick. I wanted you to know everything there was to tell. Just how weak and wicked and mean I could be. I knew I didn't deserve to hold your hand this morning, and that was the very reason I wanted it so much."

"But, Magnus," Cherry said, the bright drops welling up again, "that 'could' is in the past."

"With the Lord's help, yes!" he answered. "I will live a pure life and a true life, even if I must live it alone. Your arrow did its work."

"Mine?" the girl cried. "Oh, Magnus, was I so unkind?"

"So kind. But I was pierced through, all the same."

"I did not mean it," she said, the tears dropping down. "Oh, Magnus, I did not mean it!"

"Well, you had better mean it," he said; "good enough for me. If there were more girls like you in the world there'd be more better men. Why, half of the women you see almost put the stuff down your throat. Give it to you so sweetened and spiced and fussed up that you don't know what you're taking. And when it's once in your mouth, it's pretty hard not to swallow it."

"Very hard, I should think," said Cherry. "It looks easier to refuse it altogether."

"For you, I dare say; but things are not always exactly what they look, for other people. However, I am going to try it. So if you ever happen to read in the papers of a hopelessly insane cadet, you'll know who it is."

Again the girl's eyes filled, though a bit of a smile came too.

"Magnus," she said, "I think you are called to be a leader."

"Looks like it."

"But I mean, really. How many other fellows, do you think, may take heart to follow, if you will but show the way?"

"So you said before. How many? I don't know; perhaps some. Oh, there are men enough there now who never touch anything stronger than water. And I never did, till that unlucky night. But I've been in lately, somehow, with the other crowd."

"Crowds are unsafe places," Cherry said with a sigh.

"Well, don't waste any long breaths on me," Magnus said. "Why do you?"

The girl's lips parted in that same pathetic smile, but then they began to quiver, trembling so that she could not speak.

"I wonder at you," Magnus repeated. "Why don't you tell me all your mind, and bid me go? What do you want of such a Derelict?"

"Magnus, you are very hard to me."

"I? Hard to you?" Magnus repeated, at her feet now. "To you? My beauty, and treasure, and heart's delight? The girl I love best in all the world, and the only one I ever can love better than everything else. I, hard to you? The girl I left behind me, with my heart in her keeping. And now she sits there, despising me. Cherry, I never was anything but true to you; never. I have fooled with other girls, but I did not care a red cent for the whole lot."

"No—" Cherry said, drawing a long, long sigh. "Oh Magnus! you were not true to yourself."

"Never mind me," Magnus answered unreasonably. "I don't want you for a missionary. If I've got to have one, call in some old wrinkled specimen that will not distract my mind. If you don't care anything about me except to get me creditably out of the world, why, say so. I have told you all the worst things about myself. And if you are willing to work it as we always did; I carrying you over the hard places, and you brushing the mud off with your own little hands—you can say that, too."

"Oh, Magnus!" she cried, "there must not be any mud."

"There must not be, and there isn't going to be; but what if there was? We can't have the marriage service made over just for us two, I suppose. I mean it shall be for better and better, every day I live—but you've got to take me 'for better, for worse.'"

I fancy few men have any faint notion what it is to a woman to have her image of perfection marred; perhaps men less often set up ideals, unless in the line of beauty; and that is altogether a lower erection. To see "fragile" written on your tower of strength, and the hero marked "human," in unmistakable letters, is a very, very sharp lesson. A good one, though; the sooner that form of idolatry ceases the better; letting the woman down—or up—to her proper station of helpmeet. Cherry's heart was ringing yet with the ache and the sorrow, her eyes dazed with this sudden mortal light let in upon the world of dreams and imaginations.

Her love was not changed, she knew that; as it had gone out to the hero, so still it went out to the man, and would, while her life lasted. No question to settle there. But now another was stirring in the girl's heart, coming on a sudden uncalled for, unwelcome—and the old words of the apostle confronted her:

"And the wife see that she reverence her husband."

Could she do that? For suppose—

Cherry could not put the thought in actual black and white, even to herself, but none the less she heard it speak. He had been tempted once—what if it happened again, or again?

And now the girl lifted her head and looked at him, as if to spell out the answer; never guessing how she looked. Wistful, questioning, eager; a look so pathetic in its love and sorrow that Magnus had all he could do to sit still and bear it. But then Cherry turned away again, and dropping her face in her hands cried and sobbed as if she had never cried before.

"That means, you give me up," Magnus said, struggling with himself. "You have no use for me any more; and I may go to Jericho or the moon, as I like best. Well, it is natural, I suppose. What could you want with anyone who had even once given way? I shall never blame you, Cherry. But, stop crying, dear heart! It's hard lines for a man to be killed two ways at once. Cherry—stop! Do you hear?"

With a great effort the girl controlled herself, and looked up, pushing the tears to right and left; drawing one of those long clearing-wind breaths of which women seem to have the prerogative. A breath at once of loss and of courage, coming from the depths of pain, but telling of courage and hope; that sort of sigh which has many a time been followed by a shout of victory.

Magnus had been watching her eagerly, but as she looked up, his eyes turned away, and Cherry again studied him. What a boy he was still, after all: the young head with its short, curling hair, already showing that West Point barbers were far away; the smooth cheek giving faint tokens of what soon would be. The very hands looked so young. They were not clasped nor folded, but lay absolutely still, with that air of intense waiting which the whole figure wore. Cherry gazed at them, one and another scene of her young life wherein those hands had played a part coming up before her. Played it so well and so kindly that she had every line of them by heart; sledding, strawberrying, nutting, riding; the broken toys they had mended, the strong help they had been in many a rough place. Always gentle and patient for her, always ready to do her bidding; the tenderest hands when she was hurt, the most untirable for her need.

Cherry almost cried out aloud, for the sudden stricture of heart, but she kept herself in hand, and now her look went up to the face again, and she found that Magnus was watching her, with the intensest, hungry, longing eagerness. He did not stir, but sat still in that attitude of waiting.

"Magnus—"

"What?"

"Why do not you speak?"

"I have nothing to say, Cherry."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing. I have said all I can. I might promise never to grieve you again; might promise all sorts of beautiful things; but you know—and I know—that something stronger than mere love of you, dear, must do the work, and that the work must be done, whether you ever love me again or not. I believe I did not know I could be tempted—and I have been left to find it out. If I tell you that I have sworn unto the Lord and will not go back, it is not to plead my cause with you, Cherry; but because I know that just for old-time's sake, your dear heart will always care that your old playmate should grow into a man and not a beast."

"Oh, Magnus!" she cried, in that same sudden way.

"Well, that is what it amounts to. That was what I called myself next morning. And then with the joy of getting home and among you all again—and the wonder of seeing what you had grown into—everything else went out of my head. I was so eager to have you that I took it for granted you would have me. Then I remembered that for two whole years you had seen nothing of me, and the more I loved you the more that thought kept coming up. So then I gave you the whole story, and lost all I care for in this world. But it had to be done—and I should do it again. You needn't look at me so, dear, and try to hide how you feel. You could not help being disgusted. I do not blame you in the least, Cherry."

"Oh, Magnus!" she cried again. "How can you use such words about me?" "What words shall I use? You were disgusted, and you know it."

"No, oh, no!"

"What then? Choose your own words, and tell me."

"I thought my heart was breaking," the girl said, pressing both hands upon her breast. "That was all."

"Was that all?" Magnus said, with a sort of quiet rage at himself. "Had I done nothing but that? Only broken the truest heart that ever beat? Nothing more?"

"Please, please!" Cherry pleaded. "Magnus, I cannot talk to you if you say such things."

"Go on then, you, and do the talking. Didn't I tell you I had nothing more to say?"

Cherry hesitated a moment, and then she put out her hand and laid it softly on that other which had grown so brown with handling guns and pontoons. Magnus winced, as at the touch of sharp steel, but his own hand never stirred.

"What is it?" he said rather shortly.

"Magnus—does your mother know?"

"I am going to tell her."

"No, no, do not! There is no need," Cherry said earnestly.

"Not much use, perhaps," he answered in a gloomy tone. "She's bound to be my mother, through thick and thin."

"Promise!" Cherry said.

"What have you got to do with it?" Magnus asked her, looking up. "What business is it of yours, anyhow? You have washed your hands of me and my concerns."

"Magnus, you know that is not true."

"I hope it will not take more tears to do the work," he went on in the same tone. "There have been enough shed now, to clear away fifteen years of memories."

"You do not think so, or you would not say it," poor Cherry protested. "You are just trying to make me contradict you."

"Am I?" said Magnus, with a half laugh. "Well, go ahead and do it, then. Say nothing could ever make you forget me."

"Nothing ever could."

"Say you did love me with all your heart when I went away."

"Yes."

"And all the time I was gone."

"All the time."

"And when I came home."

"Yes," the girl answered in her grave, sweet tones.

"So little while ago!" Magnus said, with a deep breath. "Cherry, you were very distant to me at first—have been, all along."

"You were a little bit of a stranger."

"And now you know me too well. So it goes. If I had not told you—but it is better so."

"Oh, yes; far better!" the girl said earnestly. "Secrets are terrible things between people who—care for each other."

"How cautiously she chooses her words," Magnus said, in the same hard way. "Has to stop and think whether she even cares."

"Magnus, that is not true."

"Didn't you stop to think what to say?"

"Yes."

"Well, then."

"People stop to think for different reasons."

"You were afraid of saying too much, and you know you were."

"If you are so very far-seeing, perhaps you can also tell me why."

"Because you are as true as the blue sky," said Magnus; "and as tender, and so you wanted to use the softest words you could, and hurt me the least."

"You would not 'make a max,' as you call it, on girls," said Cherry, her lips parting in a bit of a smile. "I did not choose my words so, at all."

"Why, then?"

"Because I am a girl, I think," she answered rather slowly.

"And so did not want to give more pain than you could help. That is just what I said."

"Do you ever play stupid at West Point?" Cherry said a little impatiently.

"No need to play it."

"Well, there is no need now," she said, springing up; "and I am going home till you come back to your common sense."

"No, don't go!" Magnus said, catching hold of her dress. "Sit down and lecture me, scold me, say what you will of me, only stay a while longer. Cherry, you do not know what it is to have the only girl in the world throw you off."

She turned then, and stood looking down at him; the fair face telling all he wanted to know; but, as Cherry had said, he was not well read in girls.

"Magnus," she said, "what makes you talk so? I am not 'the only girl in the world'—but I have not thrown you off. You know I could not do that. Unless——"

"Unless what?" he said eagerly.

"Unless I knew you had chosen such ways," the girl said, growing very white. "And then it would be you that had thrown me off."