“Not an affectionate disposition,” then to his coachman:  “No, that’s all right.  Drive on, Hopkins.”

When Mr. Tebrick was alone he rejoiced exceedingly in his solitary life.  He understood, or so he fancied, what it was to be happy, and that he had found complete happiness now, living from day to day, careless of the future, surrounded every morning by playful and affectionate little creatures whom he loved tenderly, and sitting beside their mother, whose simple happiness was the source of his own.

“True happiness,” he said to himself, “is to be found in bestowing love; there is no such happiness as that of the mother for her babe, unless I have attained it in mine for my vixen and her children.”

With these feelings he waited impatiently for the hour on the morrow when he might hasten to them once more.

When, however, he had toiled up the hillside, to the earth, taking infinite precaution not to tread down the bracken, or make a beaten path which might lead others to that secret spot, he found to his surprise that Silvia was not there and that there were no cubs to be seen either.  He called to them, but it was in vain, and at last he laid himself on the mossy bank beside the earth and waited.

For a long while, as it seemed to him, he lay very still, with closed eyes, straining his ears to hear every rustle among the leaves, or any sound that might be the cubs stirring in the earth.

At last he must have dropped asleep, for he woke suddenly with all his senses alert, and opening his eyes found a full-grown fox within six feet of him sitting on its haunches like a dog and watching his face with curiosity.  Mr. Tebrick saw instantly that it was not Silvia.  When he moved the fox got up and shifted his eyes, but still stood his ground, and Mr. Tebrick recognised him then for the dog-fox he had seen once before carrying a hare.  It was the same dark beast with a large white tag to his brush.  Now the secret was out and Mr. Tebrick could see his rival before him.  Here was the real father of his godchildren, who could be certain of their taking after him, and leading over again his wild and rakish life.  Mr. Tebrick stared for a long time at the handsome rogue, who glanced back at him with distrust and watchfulness patent in his face, but not without defiance too, and it seemed to Mr. Tebrick as if there was also a touch of cynical humour in his look, as if he said: 

“By Gad! we two have been strangely brought together!”

And to the man, at any rate, it seemed strange that they were thus linked, and he wondered if the love his rival there bare to his vixen and his cubs were the same thing in kind as his own.

“We would both of us give our lives for theirs,” he said to himself as he reasoned upon it, “we both of us are happy chiefly in their company.  What pride this fellow must feel to have such a wife, and such children taking after him.  And has he not reason for his pride?  He lives in a world where he is beset with a thousand dangers.  For half the year he is hunted, everywhere dogs pursue him, men lay traps for him or menace him.  He owes nothing to another.”