done before, but stayed where he was and finished
his letter.

Afterwards he said to himself that it was only a wild fox and sent by
the devil to mock him, and that madness lay that way if he should
listen. But on the other hand he could not deny to himself that it might
have been his wife, and that he ought to welcome the prodigal. Thus he
was torn between these two thoughts, neither of which did he completely
believe. He stayed thus tormented with doubts and fears all night.

The next morning he woke suddenly with a start and on the instant heard
a fox bark once more. At that he pulled on his clothes and ran out as
fast as he could to the garden gate. The sun was not yet high, the dew
thick everywhere, and for a minute or two everything was very silent. He
looked about him eagerly but could see no fox, yet there was already joy
in his heart.

Then while he looked up and down the road, he saw his vixen step out of
the copse about thirty yards away. He called to her at once.

"My dearest wife! Oh, Silvia! You are come back!" and at the sound of
his voice he saw her wag her tail, which set his last doubts at rest.

But then though he called her again, she stepped into the copse once
more though she looked back at him over her shoulder as she went. At
this he ran after her, but softly and not too fast lest he should
frighten her away, and then looked about for her again and called to her
when he saw her among the trees still keeping her distance from him. He
followed her then, and as he approached so she retreated from him, yet
always looking back at him several times.

He followed after her through the underwood up the side of the hill,
when suddenly she disappeared from his sight, behind some bracken.
When he got there he could see her nowhere, but looking about him found
a fox's earth, but so well hidden that he might have passed it by a
thousand times and would never have found it unless he had made
particular search at that spot.

But now, though he went on his hands and knees, he could see nothing of
his vixen, so that he waited a little while wondering.

Presently he heard a noise of something moving in the earth, and so
waited silently, then saw something which pushed itself into sight. It
was a small sooty black beast, like a puppy. There came another behind
it, then another and so on till there were five of them. Lastly there
came his vixen pushing her litter before her, and while he looked at her
sile