Adam's Breed

The forest was turning scarlet and golden, touched by the first sudden frosts of autumn, and Gian-Luca felt terribly cold these nights, so that sometimes he must get up and walk. The fever had left him, its place being taken by an ever-increasing weakness, yet the thought of four walls that would shut him in, the thought of a roof that would shut away the sky, and above all the thought of leaving the trees, filled him with misery.

"If I eat more I may feel less cold," he reasoned; so whenever he felt able he went into Lyndhurst, and while there he would try to pull himself together, smiling as he purchased his food. "If they think I am ill they will catch me! " he would mutter; "and of course I am not really ill -- "