There would be a moon presently, and in the meantime it was preparing to freeze harder than ever.
Paul walked slowly up the village street, while two men emerged separately from the darkness of by-lanes and followed him.

He did not heed them.

He was not aware that the thermometer stood somewhere below zero.

He did not even trouble to draw on his fur gloves.
He felt like a man whose own dogs have turned against him.

The place that these peasants had occupied in his heart had been precisely that vacancy which is filled by dogs and horses in the hearts of many men.
There was in his feeling for them that knowledge of a complete dependence by which young children draw and hold a mother's love.
Paul Howard Alexis was not a man to analyze his thoughts.