The doors were shut. All about the place hung
that heavy mantle of stillness which wraps a foresaken home, a
stillness in which not even a squirrel chattered or a blue-jay lifted
his voice, and in which nothing moved. He stood amid that silence,
hearing only a faint whisper from the river, a far-off monotone from
the falls beyond the chute. He felt a heaviness in his breast, a
sickening sense of being forsaken.
He went in, walked through the kitchen, looked into the bedroom, came
back to the front room, opening doors and windows to let in the sun
and air and drive out the faint, musty odor that gathers in a closed
house. A thin film of dust had settled on the piano, on chairs, on the
table. He stood in the middle of the room, abandoned to a horrible
depression. It was so still, so lonely, in there. His mind, quick to
form images, likened it to a crypt, a tomb in which all his hopes laid
buried. That was the effect it had on him, this deserted house. His
intelligence protested against submitting to this acceptance of
disaster prior to the event, but his feelings overrode his
intelligence.
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