`No, alas! That's how I've got into all the trouble. And that's why my mind mistrusts so thoroughly.'
`Let your mind mistrust. What does it matter!'
The dog sighed with discomfort on the mat. The ash-clogged fire sank.
`We are a couple of battered warriors,' said Connie.
`Are you battered too?' he laughed. `And here we are returning to the fray!'
`Yes! I feel really frightened.'
`Ay!'
He got up, and put her shoes to dry, and wiped his own and set them near the fire. In the morning he would grease them. He poked the ash of pasteboard as much as possible out of the fire. `Even burnt, it's filthy,' he said. Then he brought sticks and put them on the hob for the morning. Then he went out awhile with the dog.
When he came back, Connie said:
`I want to go out too, for a minute.'
She went alone into the darkness. There were stars overhead. She could smell flowers on the night air. And she could feel her wet shoes getting wetter again. But she felt like going away, right away from him and everybody.
It was chilly. She shuddered, and returned to the house. He was sitting in front of the low fire.
`Ugh! Cold!' she shuddered.
He put the sticks on the fire, and fetched more, till they had a good crackling chimneyful of blaze. The rippling running yellow flame made them both happy, warmed their faces and their souls.
`Never mind!' she said, taking his hand as he sat silent and remote. `One does one's best.'
`Ay!' He sighed, with a twist of a smile.
She slipped over to him, and into his arms, as he sat there before the fire.
`Forget then!' she whispered. `Forget!'
He held her close, in the running warmth of the fire. The flame itself was like a forgetting. And her soft, warm, ripe weight! Slowly his blood turned, and began to ebb back into strength and reckless vigour again.
`And perhaps the women really wanted to be there and love you properly, only perhaps they couldn't. Perhaps it wasn't all their fault,' she said.
`I know it. Do you think I don't know what a broken-backed snake that's been trodden on I was myself!'
She clung to him suddenly. She had not wanted to start all this again. Yet some perversity had made her.
`But you're not now,' she said. `You're not that now: a broken-backed snake that's been trodden on.'
`I don't know what I am. There's black days ahead.'