The torment was over.  Even that day the healing would begin.  The
survivors of the people scattered over the country--leaderless,
lawless, foodless, like sheep without a shepherd--the thousands who
had fled by sea, would begin to return; the pulse of life, growing
stronger and stronger, would beat again in the empty streets and pour
across the vacant squares.  Whatever destruction was done, the hand of
the destroyer was stayed.  All the gaunt wrecks, the blackened
skeletons of houses that stared so dismally at the sunlit grass of the
hill, would presently be echoing with the hammers of the restorers and
ringing with the tapping of their trowels.  At the thought I extended
my hands towards the sky and began thanking God.  In a year, thought
I--in a year. . .

With overwhelming force came the thought of myself, of my wife, and
the old life of hope and tender helpfulness that had ceased for ever.