Networking-going round the bend!

I had a network between my XPSP1 as host and my 98SE PC as guest using a
crossover cable connection which was working and I could transfer files
either way and also connect to the Internet from the 98SE guest.
The only thing I couldn't do was use Outlook Express from the 98SE PC
The mistake I mad was trying to play around to try and achieve this with the
result that I have lost the network and the 98SE cannot access the Internet
in order to set-up the network.
I have gone round in circles trying at least to get my network back running
the wizard on both PCs but have failed.
How do I simply get back at least to share files which is more important to
me than connecting to the Internet via the cable connection.
Blair