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On one of the first days of the year 1880, in the early afternoon, husband and ent for a walk in the copse on the little hill above Rylands They were still at this tiether While they alking they heard the hounds and later the huntsman's horn in the distance Mr Tebrick had persuaded her to hunt on Boxing Day, but with great difficulty, and she had not enjoyed it (though of hacking she was fond enough)
Hearing the hunt, Mr Tebrick quickened his pace so as to reach the edge of the copse, where they ood view of the hounds if they caan ale of the copse she suddenly snatched her hand away from his very violently and cried out, so that he instantly turned his head
Where his wife had been the ht red It looked at hily, advanced towards hi at hihast: and soherself in that shape, so they did nothing for nearly half-an-hour but stare at each other, he bewildered, she asking him with her eyes as if indeed she spoke to him: "What am I now become? Have pity on me, husband, have pity onon her and knowing her well, even in such a shape, yet asking hi?" and her beseeching and lastly fawning on hi to tell hiether and he took her in his ar under his coat and fell to licking his face, but never taking her eyes fro in his head and gazing on her, but he could make no sense of what had happened, but only comforted hie, and that presently she would turn back again into the wife that was one flesh with him
One fancy that came to him, because he was so much more like a lover than a husband, was that it was his fault, and this because if anything dreadful happened he could never blame her but himself for it