and the hunger cancer and homelessness would be hard; very hard even if
honor stood at the other end.

"There they are--the major and his wife," whispered Snark, gripping
his arm and nodding out of the window to where a tall, clean-shaven,
white-haired man and a lady who looked the thoroughbred stood anxiously
scanning the windows of the cars. Drawn up at the curb behind them was
a smart two-seated phaeton, with a pair of clean-limbed bays. The driver
was not a negro, as is usually the case in the South, but a tight-faced
little man, who looked the typical London cockney that he was.

Garrison never remembered how he got through his introduction to his
"uncle" and "aunt." His home-coming was a dream. The sense of shame was
choking him as Major Calvert seized both hands in a stone-crushed grip
and looked down upon him, steadily, kindly, for a long time.

And then Mrs. Calvert, a dear, middle-aged lady, had her arms about
Garrison's neck and was saying over and over again in the impulsive
Southern fashion: "I'm so glad to see you, dear. You've your mother's
own eyes. You know she and I were chums."

Garrison had choked, and if the eminent lawyer's wonderful vocabulary
and eloquent manner had not just then intervened, Garrison then and
there would have wilted and confessed everything. If only, he told
himself fiercely, Major Calvert and his wife had not been so courteous,
so trustful, so simple, so transparently honorable, incapable of
crediting a dishonorable action to another, then perhaps it would not
have been so difficult.

The ride behind the spanking bays was all a dream; all a dream as they