lemma, and his
intention of speaking to Mr Rimbolt, and they talked it over very
seriously and anxiously. At last Mr Frampton said,--

"Let me speak to Mr Rimbolt."

"Most thankfully I will."

So Mr Frampton spoke to Mr Rimbolt, and told him frankly all there was
to tell, and Mr Rimbolt, like a gentleman who knew something of
Christian charity, joined his informant in pitying the offender.

"Jeffreys," said he, the day after Mr Frampton's departure, "your
friend has told me a story about you which I heard with great sorrow.
You are now doing all that an honest man can do, with God's help, to
make up for what is past. What I have been told does not shake my
present confidence in you in any way, and I need not tell you that not a
single person in this house beyond yourself and me shall know anything
about this unhappy affair."

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

"GOING IT."

Jeffreys started for London with a lighter heart than he had known since
he first came to Wildtree. When he contrasted his present sense of
relief with the oppression which had preceded it, he marvelled how he
could ever have gone on so long, dishonestly nursing his wretched secret
under Mr Rimbolt's roof. Now, in the first reaction of relief, he was
tempted to believe his good name was really come back, and that Mr
Rimbolt having condoned his offence, the memory of Bolsover was
cancelled.

It was a passing temptation only. Alas! that memory clung still.
Nothing could alter the past; and though he might now feel secure from
its consequences, he had only to think of young Forrester to remind him
that somewhere the black mark stood against his name as cruelly as ever.

Yet, comparatively, he felt light-hearted, as with the Rimbolt family he
stood at last on the London platform.

It was new ground to him. Some years ago Mr Halgrove had lived several
months in the Metropolis, and the boy, spending his summer holidays
there, and left entirely to his own devices, had learned in a plodding
way about as much of the great city as a youth of seventeen could well
do in the time.

The Rimbolts' house in Clarges Street was to Jeffreys' mind not nearly
so cheerful as Wildtree. The library in it consisted of a small
collection of books, chiefly political, for Mr Rimbolt's use in his
parliamentary work; and the dark little room allotted to him, with its
look-out on the mews, was dull indeed compared with the chamber at
Wildtree, from which he could at lea