"And who," questioned Heliobas, in tones of hushed reverence, "Who was this Being that thus enchants your memory?"
"I know not!" replied Alwyn, with a dreamy smile of rapture on his lips and in his eyes. "And yet her face ... oh! the entrancing beauty of that face! ... was not altogether unfamiliar. I felt that I must have loved and lost her ages upon ages ago! Crowned with white flowers, and robed in a garb that seemed spun from midsummer moonbeams, she stood ... a smiling Maiden-Sweetness in a paradise of glad sights and sounds, ... ah! Eve, with the first sunrise radiance on her brows, was not more divinely fair! ... Venus, new-springing from the silver sea-foam, was not more queenly glorious! 'I WILL REMIND THEE OF ALL THOU HAST FORGOTTEN,' she said, and I understood her soft, half-reproachful accents. 'IT IS NOT YET TOO LATE! THOU HAST LOST MUCH AND SUFFERED MUCH, AND THOU HAST BLINDLY ERRED, BUT NOTWITHSTANDING ALL THESE THINGS, THOU ART MY BELOVED SINCE THESE MANY THOUSAND DAYS!'"
"Days--which the world counts as years!" murmured Heliobas. "You saw no one but her?"
"No one--we were alone together. A vast woodland stretched before us, she took my hand and led me beneath broad-arching trees to where a lake, silvered by some strange radiance, glittered diamond-like in the stirring of a balmy wind. Here she bade me rest--and sank gently on the flowery bank beside me. Then viewing her more closely I greatly feared her beauty--for I saw a wondrous halo wide and dazzling--a golden aureole that spread itself around her in scintillating points of light--light that reflected itself also on me and bathed me in its luminous splendor. And as I gazed at her in speechless awe, she leaned toward me nearer and nearer, her deep, pure eyes burning softly into mine ... her hands touched me--her arms closed round me ... her bright head lay in all its shining loveliness on my breast! A tremulous ecstasy thrilled me as with fire ... I gazed upon her as one might gaze on some fluttering, rare-plumaged bird ... I dare not move or speak ... I drank her sweetness down into my soul! Now and then a sound as of distant harps playing broke the love-weighted silence ... and thus we remained together a heavenly breathing-space of wordless rapture; till suddenly and swiftly, as though she had received an invisible summons, she arose, her looks expressing a saintly patience, and laying her two hands upon my brows--'Write,' she said, 'WRITE AND PROCLAIM A MESSAGE OF HOPE TO THE SORROWFUL STAR! WRITE AND LET THINE UTTERANCE BE A TRUE ECHO OF THE ETERNAL MUSIC WITH WHICH THESE SPHERES ARE FILLED! WRITE TO THE RHYTHMIC BEAT OF THE HARMONIES WITHIN THEE ... FOR LO! ONCE MORE AS IN AFORETIME MY CHANGELESS LOVE RENEWS IN THEE THE POWER OF PERFECT SONG!' With that she moved away serenely and beckoned me to follow ... I obeyed in haste and trembling ... long rays of rosy light swept after her like trailing wings, and as she walked, the golden nimbus round her form glowed with a thousand brilliant and changeful hues like the rainbows seen in the spray of falling water! Through lush green grass thick with blossom,--under groves heavy with fragrant leaves and laden with the songs of birds ... over meadows cool and mountain-sheltered, on we went--she, like the goddess of advancing Spring, I eagerly treading in her radiant footsteps ... and presently we came to a place where two paths met, ... one all overgrown with azure and white flowers, that ascended away and away into undiscerned distance, ... the other sloping deeply downward, and full of shadows, yet dimly illumined by a pale, mysterious splendor like frosty moonlight streaming on sad-colored seas. Here she turned and faced me, and I saw her divine eyes droop with the moisture of unshed tears. 'THEOS! ... THEOS!' ... she cried, and the passionate cadence of her voice was as the singing of a nightingale in lonely woodlands ... 'AGAIN ... AGAIN WE MUST PART! ... PART! ... OH, MY BELOVED! ... MY BELOVED! HOW LONG WILT THOU SEVER ME FROM THY SOUL AND LEAVE ME ALONE AND SORROWFUL AMID THE JOYS OF HEAVEN?' As she thus spoke a sense of utter shame and loss and failure overwhelmed me, ... pierced to the very core of my being by an unexplained yet most bitter remorse, I cast myself down in deep abasement before her, ... I caught her glittering robe ... I strove to say 'Forgive!' but I was speechless as a convicted traitor in the presence of a wronged queen! All at once the air about us was rent by a great noise of thunder intermingled with triumphal music,--she drew her sheeny garment from my touch in haste, and stooping to me where I knelt, she kissed my forehead ... 'THY ROAD LIES THERE'--she murmured in quick, soft tones, pointing to the vista of varying light and shadow,--'MINE, YONDER!' and she looked toward the flower- garlanded avenue--'HASTEN! ... IT IS TIME THOU WERT FAR HENCE! ... RETURN TO THINE OWN STAR LEST ITS PORTALS BE CLOSED ON THEE FOREVER AND THOU BE PLUNGED INTO DEEPER DARKNESS! SEEK THOU THE FIELD OF ARDATH!--AS CHRIST LIVES, I WILL MEET THEE THERE! FAREWELL!' With these words she left me, passing away, arrayed in glory, treading on flowers, and ever ascending till she disappeared! ... while I, stricken with a great repentance, went slowly, as she bade me, down into the shadow, and a rippling breeze-like melody, as of harps and lutes most tenderly attuned, followed me as I descended. And now," said Alwyn, interrupting his narrative and speaking with emphatic decision, "surely there remains but one thing for me to do--that is, to find the 'Field of Ardath.'"