ast it is true that could sit at table and play piquet when
it would, but for all that nothing really but a wild beast. His one hope
now was the recovery of this beast, and of this he dreamed continually.
Likewise both waking and sleeping he was visited by visions of her; her
mask, her full white-tagged brush, white throat, and the thick fur in
her ears all haunted him.

Every one of her foxey ways was now so absolutely precious to him that I
believe that if he had known for certain she was dead, and had thoughts
of marrying a second time, he would never have been happy with a woman.
No, indeed, he would have been more tempted to get himself a tame fox,
and would have counted that as good a marriage as he could make.

Yet this all proceeded one may say from a passion, and a true conjugal
fidelity, that it would be hard to find matched in this world. And
though we may think him a fool, almost a madman, we must, when we look
closer, find much to respect in his extraordinary devotion. How
different indeed was he from those who, if their wives go mad, shut them
in madhouses and give themselves up to concubinage, and nay, what is
more, there are many who extenuate such conduct too. But Mr. Tebrick was
of a very different temper, and though his wife was now nothing but a
hunted beast, cared for no one in the world but her.

But this devouring love ate into him like a consumption, so that by
sleepless nights, and not caring for his person, in a few months he was
worn to the shadow of himself. His cheeks were sunk in, his eyes hollow
but excessively brilliant, and his whole body had lost flesh, so that
looking at him the wonder was that he was still alive.

Now that the hunting season was over he had less anxiety for her, yet
even so he was not positive that the hounds had not got her. For between
the time of his setting her free, and the end of the hunting season
(just after Easter), there were but three vixens killed near. Of those
three one was a half-blind or wall-eyed, and one was a very grey
dull-coloured beast. The third answered more to the description of his
wife, but that it had not much black on the legs, whereas in her the
blackness of the legs was very plain to be noticed. But yet his fear
made him think that perhaps she had got mired in running and the legs
being muddy were not remarked on as black. One morning the first week
in May, about four o'clock, when he was out waiting in the little copse,
he sat down f