Lips blushing with his kisses trembled in a smile, and she bowed her head a little, so that he was looking at her smooth hair, soft and sweet where he had caressed it a few moments before.
"I thank God!" he said.
He did not finish the surge of gratitude that was in his heart.

Speech seemed trivial, even futile.

But she understood.

He was not thanking God for that moment, but for a lifetime of something that at last had come to him.

This, it seemed to him, was the end, the end of a world as he had known it, the beginning of a new.