‘We’ll get married,’ he said.

The mouse had run away to hide in the dark beyond the bed, and the fire sank from its brilliance and grew more warmly red as the wood turned to rich embers. Henry breathed noisily in his sleep and Nellie waked no more, her face now turned toward the shadows. Jonas trailed his hand over the outlines of her arm, over her shoulder and over her breast, looking at her with his fingers and with his eyes.

‘We’ll get married,’ he said. And then he added, ‘I look for winter to break.’

‘I look for spring,’ Ellen said.

‘Soon now. Afore you know.’

‘The spring birds up in the thicket.’

‘But the ground is froze deep.’

‘But it’ll come, spring will,’ she said, her hands on his throat and on his shoulder. ‘Thawen time and then spring.’

The mouse came back and ate the crumbs near the chairs. Ellen’s eyes fell on the little oblong grey ball as it rolled nearer and nearer. Jonas was sitting up with her, tarrying. It was a token. She looked at his hand where it lay over her hand in her lap, the same gaze holding the quiet of the mouse and the quiet of his hand that moved, when it stirred, with the sudden soft motions of the little beast. The roosters crowed from farm to farm in token of midnight and Henry turned in his sleep once again. The fire sank slowly from the hearth but Ellen tended it, adding the last of the wood, a few small sticks of sycamore and ash that had been designed for the morning. She settled them together and they came quickly to life among the rich embers of the former fire, renewing the old fire that had not died. Then the mouse came back from the dark beyond the bed and lingered among the nut shells on the stones.

‘I aim to go to town this week,’ Jonas said. ‘What you want me to fetch you from town?’

‘What would you fetch me?’ she whispered.

‘I’d fetch out anything you took a fancy for if I had to shoot the judge hisself. Anything you fancy.’

By the renewed light of the fire he looked at her anew. She felt his gaze and his hands searching her for her beauty and she felt her beauty grow more full and rich when he called to it, and it became something which they held and owned together. The last light from the burning sticks shed warmly over her and she shed a rich warmth in her turn, and Jonas buried his face in the glow of her throat, whispering, covering her with his soft words.

‘We’ll get married. Some day afore summer. Spring it will be. The thaw is bound to come now.’

‘I’ll know when spring comes. The first token. I’ll know,’ she said.

‘We’ll get married.’

Jonas’s horse was stabled in the great barn, snug from the cold. Ben had thrown it a feeding of hay when he passed, and now it was asleep among the other horses, but it would be shy of the strange place and glad when it was in its own stable again. She murmured a few words about the little horse and Jonas replied. Then a wind arose after midnight and rattled the insecure windows and worried the boards of the porch roof, and Jonas drew her nearer and murmured about the wind. The fire faded slowly and the room dimmed. The mouse came back for a long season with the crumbs and the shadows that had lingered beyond the bed drew nearer. It was long past midnight and Jonas whispered that he would go. Three times he arose from their reverie and whispered that he must not stay, that it was time to go, and Ellen acquiesced.