The Mayor applied a lighted spill to his cigar and then in silence offered it to the Corporal. But the Corporal's cigar was not yet ready for smoking. "If I do go"--the voice of the Corporal was soft and thick and rather husky--"you'll ... you'll...." His father-in-law nodded. "Don't you worry about that. I'll see _her_ all right." Josiah took out his handkerchief and blew his nose violently. XLIX That evening, about nine o'clock, when Melia and the Corporal returned to Torrington Cottage, they found a cosy fire awaiting them in the charming sitting room, an act of grace on the part of Fanny, a handmaiden from the village, for the evenings were chilly. They sat a few minutes together and then Melia retired for the night after having drawn a promise from the Corporal that he would not be long in following her example. Alas, the Corporal did not feel in the least like going to bed. There was a decision to be made. In fact he had half made it already. But the good wife upstairs and the very chair in which he sat had cast their spells upon him. Gazing into the heart of the fire he realized that he was deliciously and solidly comfortable. All his days he had been a catlike lover of the comfortable. In the first instance it had been that as much as anything that had so nearly undone him. Conflicting voices were urging him, as somehow they always did, at critical moments in his life. This beautiful room with its old furniture, its china, its bric-a-brac, its soft carpet, its one rare landscape upon the wall was an enchanted palace. Even now, after all these months of occupation, it seemed like sacrilege to be sitting in it. But it was a symptom of a changed condition. This lovely place with its poetry and its elegance was a dream come true. And the honor and the affection with which a world formerly so hard and so supercilious surrounded him now made life so much sweeter than ever before. Sitting there in front of a delicious fire he felt that the peace and the beauty all about him had entered his soul. He had a right to these languors; he had purchased them with many unspeakable months of torture and pain. No one would blame him, no one could blame him if he left the dance to younger men. Suddenly he heard a little wind steal along the valley and he shivered at the image that was born upon its whisper. Just beyond these cosy, lamplit walls was Night, Chaos, Panic. Outside the tiny harbor he had won at such a price was all hell let loose. He heard the awful Crumps, he could taste the icy mud they flung over him, he was plunged again in endless, hideous hours, he could see and feel the muck, the senseless muck, the boredom, the excruciating misery. The wind in the valley grew a little louder and he shuddered in the depths of his spirit.