"I'm not blaming you, my friend, it's only envy," Abel replied good-humouredly. He still lingered a moment, looking at the books, and cross-questioning Sutton about his work, and how he spent his time. Foley, who liked anything new, was interested by this intelligent, tactless man, and wondered why Sutton should be so obviously glad when at last the young dissenter went his way. IV. The next day Foley found his friend in a mood of deep depression. He would not go out anywhere, he said; he must spend the afternoon--indeed, he meant to spend all his afternoons now--on his work; he had been neglecting it too long. And though this desperate resolve was often broken, yet from this time on he seemed subject now and then to moods of troubled conscience--moods in which he would shut himself up, sometimes for days, working feverishly alone, or only coming to his friend late at night to talk in an uneasy, interrupted way about the sinfulness of the world, and its pleasures, and how wrong it was to enjoy yourself. At these notions Foley would laugh, or argue seriously against them. That Sutton could have any real reason for feeling as he did, Foley never suspected, but thought it simply the old moroseness which haunted him, the unreasoned hatred of the Puritans for gaiety and life. And Sutton had very little to say in answer to his friend. Yes, he was getting on with his work well enough, he admitted, and there was nothing really to keep him from going out, except--except--somehow he felt it was wrong. But the wrong thing, Foley declared, was to stay in-doors all those beautiful summer days; and then more seriously he added, that he was sure what Sutton needed was to see more of the world and life. Living in his lonely retired way, what could he know of other people and the things they cared for, and how could he ever hope to have any influence on them? And, once convinced that it was his duty, Sutton became curiously eager to shut up his books and go. Indeed, for the most part, the poor young man was not hard to influence, Foley found; any strong assertion attracted him, and he was often only too willing to resign to someone else the responsibility of deciding what he ought to do. But then again he would grow suddenly so stubborn and prejudiced; and at all times he was so reserved about himself and his own feelings, that the young Englishman, in spite of his theories, never felt he really understood him. Perhaps, he sometimes fancied, Sutton had no very real ideas or impressions of his own; perhaps he was not influenced by Oxford in the least, and was not aware of any real difference between the ancient town, with its traditions and memories, and the new-built Parnassus City. V.