He had imagined that if he could only find him, all would be right, the past would be cancelled and his bad name would never again trouble him.

But as he thought of the helpless cripple, lying there unable to move without assistance, with all his prospects blighted and his very life a burden to him, he began to realise that the past was not cancelled, that he had a life's debt yet to pay, and a life's wrong for which, as far as possible, to make amends.

But he bravely faced his duty.

Forrester's letters, which came frequently, certainly did not much encourage melancholy reflections.
"I'm in clover here," the boy wrote about a week after Jeffreys had gone North.

"One would think I'd done something awfully fine.