As soon as he could, Foley went off to find his friend, getting the
address from the College books. At last in a dark alley he discovered
the house. Mr. Sutton had gone away from Oxford the day before, the
landlady told him, and had not said when he would be back. Perhaps the
gentleman would like to leave his card? The room was at the top; he must
be mindful of the stairs. Climbing up with care, Foley opened the door
and lighted a match in the darkness; the poverty and destitution of the
little room growing vivid for a moment, and then fading again into
blackness, affected him somewhat sadly. Just two chairs, a table, a
bed, and a few signs of human habitation,--several books, a coat hanging
on the wall, and three photographs over the fireplace, the familiar one
of Dr. Turnpenny, the dreamy face of Philip Gerard, and a picture that
Foley was touched to recognize as his own. All the pictures of Parnassus
City, his class mates, the young lady, the street, and college, had
disappeared, and a few old religious prints were in their place.
Feeling as if he had intruded where he had no right, Foley turned away;
lingering on the stairs, however, for he was loth to leave the house
till he had learned something more definite about his friend. Then in
the hall below he met the landlady, and began to talk to her about the
American. Mr. Sutton was such a kind gentleman, she said, and always
very quiet; but lately he had been, she thought, very lonesome and
melancholy, and he didn't seem to have any friends in Oxford now. And
though he had paid her regular, she couldn't complain of that, yet she
was afraid the poor gentleman had very little money. Indeed, he had
seemed to be in some trouble, and now he had gone away mysterious-like.
The voice of this woman, plainly so poor herself, her anxiety on
Sutton's account, remained in Foley's mind in a haunting way. And yet,
what could have happened, he asked himself, unable in common sense to
imagine any definite trouble, and nevertheless disturbed by a sense of
mystery, as if he had suddenly found himself face to face with something
more real and sad than most of the sentiments and troubles of his own
experience.
Certainly the American had greatly changed--the narrow, rustic young man
who had come there first, and the pale scholar Foley had met years
afterwards, in the twilight of the garden--there was difference enough
between the two! he thought, putting them side by side in memory. But
what this change was Sutton had not told; probably never would tell, for
in his reserve and reticence he was just the same.
And yet in his letters he had written with much less reserve, Foley
remembered. He began to wonder whether, if he should read the letters
again, with more attention, he might not find in them some hint of
Sutton's trouble. Friendless as the American seemed to be in Oxford, a
little advice and sympathy from some one who understood his
circumstances, might make perhaps all the difference to him.
When Foley got back to his own rooms, he began looking through the
portfolio of papers that he had brought with him from Germany. Yes,
there they were, the envelopes addressed in Sutton's neat fine writing.
Arranging them in order of their dates, he began to go through them.
Letters written during two or three years of his friend's life, in half
an hour he could read them all.