ing, for she started when she saw him, and though she carelessly
licked his hand, he could see that her thoughts were not with him.

Very soon she led her cubs into the earth, the dog-fox had vanished and
Mr. Tebrick was again alone. He did not wait longer but went home.

Now was his peace of mind all gone, the happiness which he had flattered
himself the night before he knew so well how to enjoy, seemed now but a
fool's paradise in which he had been living. A hundred times this poor
gentleman bit his lip, drew down his torvous brows, and stamped his
foot, and cursed himself bitterly, or called his lady bitch. He could
not forgive himself neither, that he had not thought of the damned
dog-fox before, but all the while had let the cubs frisk round him, each
one a proof that a dog-fox had been at work with his vixen. Yes,
jealousy was now in the wind, and every circumstance which had been a
reason for his felicity the night before was now turned into a monstrous
feature of his nightmare. With all this Mr. Tebrick so worked upon
himself that for the time being he had lost his reason. Black was white
and white black, and he was resolved that on the morrow he would dig the
vile brood of foxes out and shoot them, and so free himself at last
from this hellish plague.

All that night he was in this mood, and in agony, as if he had broken in
the crown of a tooth and bitten on the nerve. But as all things will
have an ending so at last Mr. Tebrick, worn out and wearied by this
loathed passion of jealousy, fell into an uneasy and tormented sleep.

After an hour or two the procession of confused and jumbled images which
first assailed him passed away and subsided into one clear and powerful
dream. His wife was with him in her own proper shape, walking as they
had been on that fatal day before her transformation. Yet she was
changed too, for in her face there were visible tokens of unhappiness,
her face swollen with crying, pale and downcast, her hair hanging in
disorder, her damp hands wringing a small handkerchief into a ball, her
whole body shaken with sobs, and an air of long neglect about her
person. Between her sobs she was confessing to him some crime which she
had committed, but he did not catch the broken words, nor did he wish to
hear them, for he was dulled by his sorrow. So they continued walking
together in sadness as it were for ever, he with his arm about her
waist, she turning her head to him and often casting her