Henry suddenly became full of sleep and he arose abruptly and left the fire. The blaze had fallen away long since and now one hard ember glowed in the midst of the fallen red ashes yielding a faint pink glow. Ellen let the fire lie untended while she gazed sadly at the iridescent ember, and Henry moved about in the dark of the region beyond the bed, making slow sounds of slipping into the bed with the low sigh of the quilts and the creak of the settling slats. Then Jonas moved Henry’s chair back and hitched his own nearer to Ellen’s chair, looking at her with amused eyes, and she arose and laid two sticks on the fire, an ash piece and a piece of sycamore, and they lay darkly together for a few moments to enkindle, which assured Jonas that he would stay longer, answering his questioning movements. The sticks lay together in the bed of the fire for a little and then sprang into first flames, bright, unheated, and new, uncertain, leaping higher and sinking away, but leaping brightly again. Ellen sat in her chair and Jonas drew his chair nearer, and sitting thus they talked a little, caring nothing for what they said but bridging the space Henry had made with his long rememberings.

‘Eli thinks he’ll work for old Man Bagby beyond the creek. I see Eli for a talk last night,’ Jonas said.

Ellen asked something but she did not know how the reply came for she heard only the assurance of a voice that brought her pleasure now whatever it said. The low monotony of the words trailed across the music and spread it widely at the end, and pleasure gathered in her body and in her mind. Now and then the voice flowed forward and her pleasure flowed upon its monotony or its falling away, taking it but not heeding its words unless a question appealed to her for a reply, and then she heard and gave the answer. Then Jonas moved his chair until it stood against hers and he began to touch her face with his fingers and to kiss her and to look at her throat. He put his arm about her shoulder and thus they sat for a long while. A mouse came out of a little round hole beside the chimney and ran over the floor toward the bed, but after a little it ventured toward the fireplace and ate the crumbs of the nut kernels that were dropped, or it rolled as a little oblong ball beside the chairs or stopped beside Ellen’s shoe. It moved slowly about, unafraid, a faint sound of diminutive feet as it came and went. The fire burned brightly now, the sycamore log and the ash, their flames blended into one flame and one light. Far away the hounds bayed, fixed voices, crying at no fox but rather at the night. A sound of hoofs on the road, far away and hollow, the sounds growing uncertain and unrhythmical as the horse came through the pasture gate and then muffled but swift again on the driveway. Mr Dick coming home. Then the barn door swung shut with a heavy hollow clatter and the footsteps were still. Jonas settled his shoulder a little nearer and whispered: