to escape from me? I am your husband, and if I keep
you confined it is to protect you, not to let you run into danger. Show
me how I can make you happy and I will do it, but do not try to escape
from me. I love you, Silvia; is it because of that that you want to fly
from me to go into the world where you will be in danger of your life
always? There are dogs everywhere and they all would kill you if it were
not for me. Come out, Silvia, come out."

But Silvia would not listen to him, so he waited there silent. Then he
spoke to her in a different way, asking her had she forgot the bargain
she made with him that she would not go out alone, but now when she had
all the liberty of a garden to herself would she wantonly break her
word? And he asked her, were they not married? And had she not always
found him a good husband to her? But she heeded this neither until
presently his temper getting somewhat out of hand he cursed her
obstinacy and told her if she would be a damned fox she was welcome to
it, for his part he could get his own way. She had not escaped yet. He
would dig her out for he still had time, and if she struggled put her in
a bag.

These words brought her forth instantly and she looked at him with as
much astonishment as if she knew not what could have made him angry.
Yes, she even fawned on him, but in a good-natured kind of way, as if
she were a very good wife putting up wonderfully with her husband's
temper.

These airs of hers made the poor gentleman (so simple was he) repent his
outburst and feel most ashamed.

But for all that when she was out of the hole he filled it up with great
stones and beat them in with a crowbar so she should find her work at
that point harder than before if she was tempted to begin it again.

In the afternoon he let her go again into the garden but sent little
Polly with her to keep her company. But presently on looking out he saw
his vixen had climbed up into the limbs of an old pear tree and was
looking over the wall, and was not so far from it but she might jump
over it if she could get a little further.

Mr. Tebrick ran out into the garden as quick as he could, and when his
wife saw him it seemed she was startled and made a false spring at the
wall, so that she missed reaching it and fell back heavily to the ground
and lay there insensible. When Mr. Tebrick got up to her he found her
head was twisted under her by her fall and the neck seemed to be broken.
The shock was