The Recluse did not even greet me, but asked me only in a hurried
way how I thought the dog Argus looked. I answered gravely and in a
low tone so as not to disturb the sufferer, that as I had not seen
him since Tuesday, when he was, for an elderly dog, in the best of
health, he certainly presented a sad contrast, but that perhaps he
was better than he had been some few hours before, and that the
Recluse himself would be the best judge of that.
My friend was greatly relieved at what I said, and told me that he
thought the dog was better, compared at least with that same
morning; then, whether you believe it or not, he took him by the
left leg just above the paw and held it for a little time as though
he were feeling a pulse, and said, "He came back less than twenty-four
hours ago!" It seemed that the dog Argus, for the first time in fourteen
years, had run away, and that for the first time in perhaps twenty or
thirty years the emotion of loss had entered into the life of the
Recluse, and that he had felt something outside books and outside
the contemplation of the landscape about his hermitage.
In a short time the dog fell into a slumber, as was shown by a
number of grunts and yaps which proved his sleep, for the dog Argus
is of that kind which hunts in dreams.
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