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.