And Garrison had been silent.  He was in a mental and moral fog.  He guessed that his supposed father had not been all that a man should be.  The eminent lawyer, Mr. Snark, had said as much.  He knew himself that he was nothing that a man should be.  His conscience was fully awakened by now.  Every worthy ounce of blood he possessed cried out for him to go; to leave Calvert House before it was too late; before the old major and his wife grew to love him as there seemed danger of them doing.

He was commencing to see his deception in its true light; the crime he was daily, hourly, committing against his host and hostess; against all decency.  He had no longer a prop to support him with specious argument, for the eminent lawyer had returned to New York, carrying with him his initial proceeds of the rank fraud—­Major Calvert’s check for ten thousand dollars.

Garrison was face to face with himself; he was beginning to see his dishonesty in all its hideous nakedness.  And yet he stayed at Calvert House; stayed on the crater of a volcano, fearing every stranger who passed, fearing to meet every neighbor; fearing that his deception must become known, though reason told him such fear was absurd.  He stayed at Calvert House, braving the abhorrence of his better self; stayed not through any appreciation of the Calvert flesh-pots, nor because of any monetary benefits, present or future.  He lived in the present, for the hour, oblivious to everything.

For Garrison had fallen in love with his next-door neighbor, Sue Desha.  Though he did not know his past life, it was the first time he had understood to the full the meaning of the ubiquitous, potential verb “to love.”  And, instead of bringing peace and content—­the whole gamut of the virtues—­hell awoke in little Billy Garrison’s soul.

The second time he had seen her was the day following his arrival, and when he had started on Doctor Blandly’s open-air treatment.

“I’ll have a partner over to put you through your paces in tennis,” Mrs. Calvert had said, a quiet twinkle in her eye.  And shortly afterward, as Garrison was aimlessly batting the balls about, feeling very much like an overgrown schoolboy, Sue Desha, tennis-racket in hand, had come up the drive.

She was bareheaded, dressed in a blue sailor costume, her sleeves rolled high on her firm, tanned arms.  She looked very businesslike, and was, as Garrison very soon discovered.

Three sets were played in profound silence, or, rather, the girl made a spectacle out of Garrison.  Her services were diabolically unanswerable; her net and back court game would have merited the earnest attention of an expert, and Garrison hardly knew where a racket began or ended.

At the finish he was covered with perspiration and confusion, while his opponent, apparently, had not begun to warm up.  By mutual consent, they occupied a seat underneath a spreading magnolia-tree, and then the girl insisted upon Garrison resuming his coat.  They were like two children.