That Trust's as good as done for, for the present! Now you know why I didn't want poor Barker to know it, nor have much to do with our search for the forger." "It would break the dear fellow's heart if he knew it," said Demorest.
"Well, it's to save him from having his heart broken further that I intend to find out this forger," said Stacy grimly.

"Good-night, Phil! I'll telegraph to you when I want you, and then COME!" With another grip of the hand he left Demorest to his thoughts.

In the first excitement of meeting his old partners, and in the later discovery of the forgery, Demorest had been diverted from his old sorrow, and for the time had forgotten it in sympathetic interest with the present.
But, to his horror, when alone again, he found that interest growing as remote and vapid as the stories they had laughed over at the table, and even the excitement of the forged letter and its consequences began to be as unreal, as impotent, as shadowy, as the memory of the attempted robbery in the old cabin on that very spot.

He was ashamed of that selfishness which still made him cling to this past, so much his own, that he knew it debarred him from the human sympathy of his comrades.
And even Barker, in whose courtship and marriage he had tried to resuscitate his youthful emotions and condone his selfish errors--even the suggestion of his unhappiness only touched him vaguely.

He would no longer be a slave to the Past, or the memory that had deluded him a few hours ago.