After Foley had spent a year or two almost entirely abroad, he returned
to England, began working hard at his profession, and it was some time
before he found the leisure to go back to Oxford. At last he went one
mid-summer alone, for an idle visit. It was the vacation; the old
College was almost deserted, and sometimes in the evening he would go
into the garden there, and, sitting under one of the great trees, would
read, or idly watch the fading of the twilight. And now memories of the
old days, and sentiments towards a place which he had once loved with a
certain enthusiasm--though half forgetting it afterwards, amid his other
occupations--came back to him with unexpected vividness. How much more
delightful it made life, he told himself one evening, as he sat there,
half lost in sentimental musing, how much more delightful it made life
to have been at Oxford, to have learned to love the place as one did
learn to love it--to have it always as a charming memory! It was so
perfect, that evening, with the sunset still lingering faint and red
behind the blue trees and towers, up there above the dusky garden
stretches. And that figure of a cloistered student which Foley could
vaguely distinguish on the twilight path; it was no real person, surely,
but a part of the picture, a figure painted into the grey landscape to
give the final touch of tranquil life! But as the figure drew nearer and
became more real, Foley began to wonder, who could it be who seemed so
familiar to him?
"Why, Sutton!" he called out, as he joined him, surprised at finding the
American still at Oxford, "You still here?"
Sutton started, and then greeting Foley in his old reserved way, they
paced together slowly on the garden path. After Foley had talked a
little about his travels and work, he turned to his companion and said
in a friendly way, "But tell me about yourself, Eliaphet, it's three
years since I have seen you; what have you been doing, and when are you
really going back to America?"
Sutton replied with all his old vagueness and reticence that he had
stayed; he had found it necessary; he had not decided yet about going
back.
"Probably you will be sorry to leave Oxford when the time comes?" Foley
suggested, but the American did not answer.
Eliaphet was a good deal changed, Foley thought when they parted; he
seemed so much thinner and more melancholy looking, and his voice was
almost like that of another person. What a difference a few years made!