WE PULLED HIM OFF, Alison and I. She tugged at him as much as I, she was as anguished and upset as I was. And suddenly, as we pinioned him and had to let him go because he was too strong for us, Silver leapt up from the floor in a single bound and flew at Andrew, grabbing him by the throat. My Silver, that I’d always thought of as gentle and easygoing. They fought and sprang apart, confronting each other, snarling like dogs. I shouted out that we were friends. I roared at them, I could have been heard in Swiss Cottage, I yelled that we sympathized, we’d come to help.

“By breaking in?” Alison cried on a bitter note.

“We never broke anything,” I said, and then I saw the piece of porcelain Silver and Andrew had knocked onto the floor while they were fighting. It had been a china bird, a bullfinch with gray wings and soft pink breast, but its head was broken off and its delicate feet were shattered. I picked up the pieces and held them in my hand.

Alison looked at its fellows on the shelf above a radiator, a wren, a greenfinch, and a thrush. She made a deprecating gesture with her right hand. “I brought them with me when I came here. They made it home. Well, no, they helped to make it home.”

The men had stopped. The fighting was over. Andrew’s neck was bruised red and purple as if someone had tried to strangle him and Silver’s face, his poor pale skin, was a mess of blood and dirt, his left eye the color of raw liver and swelling fast.

“I suppose it’s all over,” Andrew said. He sat down in the red armchair and laid his head back and closed his eyes. “You’ll have told the police or the social services. Whatever. They’ll be here soon.” He gave a sigh, the like of which I’d never heard before and have never heard since, it was so heavy and profound, a great exhalation of breath, loud and rasping. “It was a good try. It lasted six months. It’s over now.” He turned on Silver, then on me, vindictive looks. “I hope you’re pleased with yourselves.”

Alison said, before the utterance of that word yourselves, “Would you like a drink? You may as well. I want one. We’ve been through enough. We’ve one last bottle of wine.”

“What’s that called?” Andrew looked at her, casting up his eyes. “Heaping coals of fire on one’s enemies’ heads?”