“Was that all you heard, Tod?”
“Every word. The train began to slacken speed then for the Oxford station, and the two men stood up to reach their overcoats and hand-bags, for they got out there. I had half a mind to stop them and ask what Foliott they had been speaking of; but I did not much like to, and while I hesitated they disappeared. They might just have told me to mind my own business if I had spoken; so perhaps it comes to the same.”
“Foliott is not an absolutely uncommon name, Tod. There may be plenty of Foliotts about.”
“Just so, lad. But, on the other hand, it may be the one we know of, Richard Foliott. One point coincides—he is going to be married.”
I sat back on the seat, revolving probabilities, and thinking of many things. That instinctive dislike I had taken to Captain Foliott’s eyes, or to himself, or to both, flashed over me with vivid force. The fine scenery we were just then whirling past, and on which my eyes seemed to be fixed, might have been a sandy desert, for all I saw of it.
“The worst is, the dilemma it puts one in,” continued Tod. “To speak of this to the Whitneys, or not to speak?—that’s the question. If it should turn out to be another Foliott, they might never forgive me. He never would.”
“But then—Helen’s whole future may be at stake. It may be in peril.”
Tod pulled at his whiskers again. I read the name of the station we were flashing past.
“I hate a doubt of this sort,” cried Tod impatiently, “where one can’t see how one’s duty lies. It bothers the mind. I think I’ll let it go, Johnny.”
“But, if it should turn out, when too late, that he is a scamp: and, for the want of a word, you have let him—let him make havoc of Helen’s life!”