"It hurts to think about it," he said. "I don't like to remember. That is why I have never told any one. It hurt him and it hurt me."
She waited through the silence that followed for him to go on.
"I've worked and rubbed it and curried it, and nursed the hair to grow over the place. It looks just like a cinch mark now—like the mark of service. No one would ever notice. But it isn't a mark of labor. I marked the Captain—I had to do it—had to make him understand me. It laid his side open, and all the nursing, all the care I could give wouldn't make up for it. It's there. The Captain knows it; so do I."
She followed his gaze to the little rough spot far down on the sleek side.
"All wild things have to be broken," she said. "None of them ever become tame of their own volition. And in the breaking a mark is invariably left. The memory hurts, but the mark means nothing of itself, once it is healed. Don't you realize that?
"We all bear marks. The marks of our environment, the marks of our friends, the marks of those we—we love. Some of them hurt for a time, but in the end it is all good. Don't you believe that? We see those who are very dear to us suffer, and it marks us; sometimes just loving leaves its mark. But—those are the greatest things in the world. They're sacred.
"The marks on a woman who goes through fire for a man, say; the marks of a—a mother. They hurt, but in the end they make the bond tighter, more holy."
She waited. Then asked again: "Don't you believe that?"
After a long pause VB answered in a peculiarly bitter voice: "I wish I knew what I believe—if I do believe!"