"It's too beautiful." And so for a minute they stood together, as strongly held and as closely confronted as any hour of their easier past even had seen them.

They were silent at first, only facing and faced, only grasping and grasped, only meeting and met.

"It's sacred," he said at last.
"It's sacred," she breathed back to him.

They vowed it, gave it out and took it in, drawn, by their intensity, more closely together.

Then of a sudden, through this tightened circle, as at the issue of a narrow strait into the sea beyond, everything broke up, broke down, gave way, melted and mingled.