This was their citadel, their redoubt, where they always sat to settle the issues of the day, to support each other in whatever challenges it had thrown up, and increasingly, as time went on, to exchange words of tenderness and love.

And sometimes they said nothing at all. It wasn’t always necessary. All that they needed to feel complete was to sit quietly together, listening to the sounds of the street below and the occasional whisper of the ash falling in the turf fire.

—The End—