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of air hung over him entranced, and the stillness weighed
upon his mind with a horror of solitude.
Still calling at intervals, but now with a moderated voice,
he made the hasty circuit of the garden, and finding neither
man nor trace of man in all its evergreen coverts, turned at
last to the house. About the house the silence seemed to
deepen strangely. The door, indeed, stood open as before;
but the windows were still shuttered, the chimneys breathed
no stain into the bright air, there sounded abroad none of
that low stir (perhaps audible rather to the ear of the
spirit than to the ear of the flesh) by which a house
announces and betrays its human lodgers. And yet Alan must
be there - Alan locked in drunken slumbers, forgetful of the
return of day, of the holy season, and of the friend whom he
had so coldly received and was now so churlishly neglecting.
John's disgust redoubled at the thought, but hunger was
beginning to grow stronger than repulsion, and as a step to
breakfast, if nothing else, he must find and arouse this
sleeper.
He made the circuit of the bedroom quarters. All, until he
came to Alan's chamber, were locked from without, and bore
the marks of a prolonged disuse. But Alan's was a room in
commission, filled with clothes, knickknacks, letters, books,
and the conveniences of a solitary man. The fire had been
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