one would creep behind another to bounce out and startle him, a thought
came into Mr. Tebrick's head, and that was that these cubs were
innocent, they were as stainless snow, they could not sin, for God had
created them to be thus and they could break none of His commandments.
And he fancied also that men sin because they cannot be as the animals.

Presently he got up full of happiness, and began making his way home
when suddenly he came to a full stop and asked himself: "What is going
to happen to them?"

This question rooted him stockishly in a cold and deadly fear as if he
had seen a snake before him. At last he shook his head and hurried on
his path. Aye, indeed, what would become of his vixen and her children?

This thought put him into such a fever of apprehension that he did his
best not to think of it any more, but yet it stayed with him all that
day and for weeks after, at the back of his mind, so that he was not
careless in his happiness as before, but as it were trying continually
to escape his own thoughts.

This made him also anxious to pass all the time he could with his dear
Silvia, and, therefore, he began going out to them for more of the
daytime, and then he would sleep the night in the woods also as he had
done that night; and so he passed several weeks, only returning to his
house occasionally to get himself a fresh provision of food. But after a
week or ten days at the new earth both his vixen and the cubs, too, got
a new habit of roaming. For a long while back, as he knew, his vixen had
been lying out alone most of the day, and now the cubs were all for
doing the same thing. The earth, in short, had served its purpose and
was now distasteful to them, and they would not enter it unless pressed