She was faithful and true to him ... but she did not trust him beyond the threshold.
THE PIEBALD DEVIL
Had she reason to doubt him? He was chock-full of lust and vice, and great in merit as in fault; nevertheless—had she actual proof for doubting him?
One night her eyes were opened in the most sinister manner. The last rays of the setting sun had departed from the fields, leaving them wrapped in the summer evening’s mist and obscurity. Only some horses greeted the solitary nocturnal marauder with warm, friendly neighing.
They knew him well, although he was only a cat, whose many-coloured body seemed grey, like all other cats, in the twilight. In doorway, at the pump, in yard, and in stable he was their daily companion. How nice to see him here on the meadow too! “Ehehehe,” they neighed ... welcome to the tethering-ground!
He ignored them completely, neither breaking his stride, nor wagging his tail, nor giving a single miauw. Past nuisances like foals which greeted him boisterously he went unresponsive and bored. He was out hunting now—nothing else mattered!
With gliding step he passes from clover field to seed ground, jumping with noiseless, tense spring over brook and ditch. His progress roused the lark from heavy slumber.
He reaches a copse—and soon afterward is heard the death-shriek of a captured blackbird. With covetous grasp he seizes his victim, buries his sharp teeth in its breast, and sucks with long sniffs the warm, odorous bird-smell....
It was not hunger which drove him to the crime: he has just made a full meal off a couple of fat mice. But when coming unexpectedly upon the bird in the copse, he could not control his murderous impulse.
He sits with the booty in his jaws, purring contentedly, and ponders frowningly where he shall conceal his capture.