Colonel Berrineau, the Commandant of Cadets who is commonly known as The Bear, asks Will to look out for the Institute's first black cadet, Tom Pearce, knowing that Will is the only liberal in the student body. Will also begins a secret relationship with Annie Kate Gervais, a girl from an upper class Charlestonian family who has become pregnant from a boy who refused to marry her, though their relationship is doomed because Will is Irish-American and Catholic. Will attempts to help a freshman, Poteete, who is struggling with the plebe system, the brutal hazing and abuse experienced by freshmen at the Institute, but he kills himself.