Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/98

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Theos explains his dream to Heliobas, tells how he had seemed to fly into darkness, how in wild despair he cried "Oh, God, where art Thou?" and heard a great rushing sound as of a strong wind beaten through with wings, while a voice, grand and sweet as a golden trumpet blown suddenly in the silence of night, answered, "Here!—and Everywhere!" And then all was brightness, a slanting stream of opaline radiance cleft the gloom, and Alwyn was uplifted by an invisible strength. And then he hears some one call him by name, "Theos, my Beloved!" and a woman of entrancing beauty appears, crowned with white flowers, and robed in a garb that seems spun from midsummer moonbeams; . . . a smiling maiden-sweetness in a paradise of glad sights and sounds.

And this being, bidding Alwyn return to his own star, further directs him to seek out the Field of Ardath, where she will meet him. And so they part.

Theos Alwyn awakens from his dream madly in love with this vision of loveliness, and determines, if a Field of Ardath there is, to go there and keep the appointment. Heliobas shows him where the Field of Ardath lies. It is mentioned in the Book of Esdras, in the Apocrypha, and is described as