Foley went to Sutton's rooms again, but for several days he could hear nothing of him. One evening, however, when he was sitting in the garden, happening to look up, he saw the melancholy figure of the American coming down the garden path. Now that he actually saw Sutton, and was vividly aware of the atmosphere of reserve and solitude that enveloped him, Foley shrank from saying the things that he felt he ought to say. And yet someone must speak to him; someone must tell him his duty, and make him go back to the good simple people who had cared for him, supported him, and who relied on him so much!
He had been away, Sutton said, as the two young men walked slowly down the garden path. It was very still there in the twilight; and they were alone, shut in as it seemed, and very remote from the world outside.
"Have you decided yet when you are going home?" Foley asked.
"Home?"
"Yes; home to America."
"I don't know," Sutton replied. After a moment he added, in the same quiet voice, "perhaps I shall never go back."
"Then you have found some occupation in England?"
Sutton shook his head.
But didn't he think he ought to go back then, Foley asked. One had duties—and, trying to speak more lightly, he added, "You must have learned a great deal, Eliaphet, after studying all these years. Oughtn't you to go back and teach them out there?"
"I have nothing to teach them—nothing they would be willing to learn."