Aletha cried despondently until she was completely exhausted.
Then she lay awake thinking that her Castle of Dreams had fallen in ruins around her.
Never again would she dream of a special man who would love her for herself.
It was exactly the reverse of what she had expected to happen.
In England her father had been convinced that she would be married because she was the daughter of a Duke.
In Hungary the Prince thought that she was not good enough for his family and his love was not strong enough to fight them all single-handed.
Like a child who has been hurt, she wanted to go home where everything was familiar.
She wanted to leave Hungary now and at this very moment.
She wanted to find herself at back at Ling Park where all that she loved was around her.
Hungary had given her feelings that she had never in her life expected to feel.
She realised that it was the passion that comes with love and is part of love.
When it touched the soul, it was Divine.
‘I must leave,’ she thought, ‘whatever Mr. Heywood may say.’
He was quick-brained and he would doubtless by now have decided which of the horses he wanted for her father’s stables.
It would merely be a question of price and arranging for them to be safely transported to England.
‘I will tell him that we must leave as soon as he is awake,’ she told herself.
It was still dark outside, but the stars were fading in the sky.
She pulled back the curtains and then she went and stood at the window waiting for the first fingers of the dawn to appear on the horizon.
When they did, she knew that it was still too early to approach Mr. Heywood.
‘I will go riding,’ she decided.
She would ride for the last time in Hungary.
After that she would do her best to try to forget the wild gallops before the wild emotions that the Prince had aroused in her.
She told herself despairingly that she would never ever feel them again.
Her marriage would be conventional.
Because she no longer cared, she would accept the husband her father chose for her.
It was all the more bitter to know that she only had to tell Prince Miklós who she really was and everything would be changed.
But however persuasive he might be, she knew that she would never trust his love and never believe it was what he felt for her.
‘If he had been one of the peasants we saw yesterday coming back from the fields,’ she told herself. ‘I would marry him and be happy in a cottage, loving him and our children.’
This again was all part of her imagination.
As unreal as the romance of Hungary and in a way The Palace itself.
It was too beautiful, too perfect and far too dream-like to be substantial enough to build a future on without true love.
The love that as the Prince had himself claimed was irresistible.
But it was not irresistible enough for him to sacrifice his own pride for and the pride in his aristocratic family.
“I must – leave,” she cried aloud and then started to dress.
She felt that she could not be confined at the moment within the walls of The Palace.
The Prince would be too near her.
Perhaps by the time that she returned from her ride he would have left as he had said he intended to do.
Then she would never see him again and she prayed that she would forget him.
She put on a thin white blouse and her riding skirt.
Then she picked up her jacket and hesitated.
Yesterday had been hot and she had the idea that today would be hotter still.
In which case, if she intended to ride hard and fast, she would not need more than her blouse to cover her.
There would be nobody to see her anyway.
She pinned her hair tightly at the back of her head and did not wear a hat.
When she was ready, she left her room very quietly so that no one would hear her.
She moved along the corridor to where there was a secondary staircase as she knew that there would be a footman on duty in the hall.
As she went, she glanced in a mirror and thought that her face was very pale.
Her eyes seemed enormous and she knew that the darkness in them was due to the pain that she was suffering.
It made her feel as if there were a hundred arrows piercing her heart all at the same time.
She found her way without any difficulty to the door the Prince had taken her through on the first day she had arrived at the stables.
By the time she reached them the sun was shining and turning everything to gold.
It was far too early for Herr Hévis to be about.
She was to find a stable boy who had been on duty during the night.
She told him that she wanted to ride Nyul the grey she had ridden on the first afternoon.
By the time that Nyul was ready and saddled, another groom appeared and asked if he should accompany her on her ride.
She understood enough Hungarian to tell him that she was only going a little way and so wished to be on her own.
She thought that he looked surprised, but he was young and did not expostulate as Herr Hévis would have done.
She trotted out of the stables on the superb grey and forced herself to think of nothing except the horse she was riding.
“Now I can forget everything except you,” she told Nyul affectionately.
She rode through the paddocks and out through the way they had been before to reach the meadowland.
The rising sun had already brought out the butterflies and they were all fluttering over the flowers.
Just as they had done when before they rose in front of her like an elusive cloud.
The birds, disturbed by her approach, then soared up into the sky.
Nyul was fresh and Aletha gave him his head.
He sprang forward and she was riding as swiftly as the flight of a bird.
On and on they went until Aletha felt as if the hard lump of misery within her breast had softened a little.
Now the sunshine was dazzling her eyes and she thought that the beauty all around her was some consolation for the darkness and dread within her heart.
She rode on further and further deep in her thoughts.
Suddenly in the distance she saw coming towards her two men on horseback.
She thought it an intrusion that they should be encroaching on her.
For the moment she was in a sombre world where she was completely alone.
She was just about to turn round and go back to The Palace the way she had come.
Then she realised that there was something familiar about the two riders.
As she stared in their direction, she recognised with a sensation of shock that one of them was the Baron.
He was riding a very large stallion which she recalled as being the best in his stables and
the groom beside him also rode a horse that was larger than the average.
There was no doubt that it was the man who she had no wish ever to see again.
Then she became aware that the Baron had seen her.
The two horsemen were still quite some distance away, but she saw him bringing down his whip sharply on the stallion.
He spoke to his groom who also swept forward at the same time moving out from beside him.
It was then that Aletha’s intuition told her that she was in danger.
Almost as if she had heard the order that the Baron gave, she knew that he intended to come up on one side of her and the groom on the other.
Then she would be totally helpless and at their mercy.
Without wasting any more time she turned Nyul’s head for The Palace.
As she did so, she realised that she had come much further than she had at first intended.
The Palace was not yet in sight and she was no longer at the point where the Prince had turned to take them back by a different route.
She galloped for some distance and then looked back.
The Baron was far nearer to her than he had been before and he was bending over his horse and riding almost jockey-style to overtake her.
She was aware then that her distinct sense of danger had not been mistaken.
She shuddered to think what might happen if she became a captive of the Baron.
It might be a long tune before Mr. Heywood or anyone else in The Palace had any idea of where she had been taken to.
‘Help me – oh, God – help me!’ she prayed as she heard the Baron’s horse thundering along behind her and still gaining on her.
Nyul was certainly doing his best.
At the same time they had already ridden for a long way at full gallop before Aletha had become aware of the Baron.
Now Aletha was riding faster than she had ever done in her whole life.
Yet she knew that the Baron was closing the gap between them.
She thought as she tried to go faster still that she would rather die than be in his power.
*
Prince Miklós had also spent a sleepless night in his large four-poster bed.
When he had left Aletha amongst the orchids in the glasshouse, he had walked blindly across the garden.
He wanted to get away from the music and the sound of laughter.
He knew realised too well that what he was doing would break his heart and haunt him forever.
But he had been brought up to really appreciate how great his heritage was.
It had been drummed into him that he must dedicate his whole life to being as fine and brave as his ancestors had been before him.
His father had said to him when he was a small boy that whatever sacrifices he had to make he must accept them all willingly and not complain. He must not fail those who had preceded him and those who would follow him in later generations.
Prince Miklós had not quite understood at the time.
He had, however, learnt as he grew older that his duty to his family was more important than his own desires and wishes.
At school he had worked not for himself.
But by being as clever and intelligent as his father, he would not fail the family when it came to his turn to be the reigning Prince.
Of course there had been women in his life.
From the moment he was old enough they had pursued him, had tried to seduce him and make themselves indispensable to him.
They captured his body and he found them fascinating and intriguing.
But a critical part of his brain told him that they were not good enough for the position that he had to offer.
His mother had been of Royal blood and she had loved her husband and her family more than anything in the world.
For Miklós she was the standard by which he judged every woman who was offered to him as a wife.
He always found them all to be lacking.
He knew now that he would never love anyone as he loved Aletha.
From the very first moment that they had met he had known that they were already part of one another.
As he had told her, he had seen her enveloped with a Divine light.
When she came to The Palace, he could read her thoughts and sense her feelings.
He knew that she was the one and only woman who had been meant for him by God.
Even the Sacrament of Matrimony would not bind them to each other any closer than they were already.
But his brain told him that marriage with a woman whose grandfather was a paid servant of the Duke of Buclington was completely impossible.
The ancestor after whom he was named had built The Palace.
Ever since then the Estérházys had encouraged all the greatest musicians, artists and the finest brains of the country to come to Fertōd.
They had all served the family in one way or another.
‘Served’ was the operative word.
Franz Joseph Haydn might have been the finest musician of his age, but there could have been no question of his marrying an Estérházy.
The same applied to the artists, the architects, the poets and the writers.
All of them were welcome, but only to ‘serve’ the family in their various ways, certainly not becoming a part of it.
Perhaps the women who bore the aristocratic name of Estérházy were even more proud and more implacable than the men.
Prince Miklós well knew that there was not one of them, including his sister Misina, who would accept Aletha as her equal.
How could he find tranquillity or happiness in The Palace in those circumstances?
He had to live there, it was an integral part of his Kingdom.
He had to minister to those who bore his name in the same way that his ancestors had done.
They had built up a Kingdom within a Kingdom.
They all, Miklós mused, bowed to the Emperor, but privately they considered themselves superior to an Austrian.
When finally Prince Miklós walked back to The Palace the music was now silent and the guests had all departed.
The lights had been extinguished in most of the windows.
He went to his bedroom to pull back the curtains from the windows.
He felt that he must have more air to carry on breathing.
He did not undress, but just pulled off his evening coat.
Then he sat with his head in his hands and suffered as he had never suffered before in the whole of his life.
When dawn came, he knew that he felt that he had to get away so that there would be no chance of seeing Aletha again.
Even to think of seeing her made the blood throb in his temples.
Every instinct in his body told him to carry her away to his house in the mountains and make her his.
And they would be happy, deliriously, wonderfully and blissfully happy.
But there was always tomorrow and tomorrow always came.
Tomorrow and the endless years that came after it.
Years when eventually he would have to leave her and she would never forgive him.
He rang the bell for his valet and, when the man came, he told him to pack.
As he had no wish to see anyone and have to make explanations or answer questions, he ordered breakfast to be brought to his room.
Having bathed and changed his clothes, he stood at the window and looked out blindly over the flower-filled garden.
Beyond was the meadowland where he had galloped freely with Aletha. It was separated from the gardens by a brick wall that surrounded the whole Palace.
Then he was aware that there were three horses in the far distance.
At that range they were little larger than dots and they seemed to be moving towards The Palace at speed.
He watched them only vaguely as he was so immersed in his own unhappiness.
Suddenly he saw, although he could hardly believe his eyes, that the leading horse was Nyul and that Aletha was riding him.
He watched her as she rode leaning forward, straining every nerve to make the grey go faster and faster.
Because he thought that it all seemed so strange, he looked past her.
She was being followed by two men.
With a sense of shock he realised that one of them was Baron Otto von Sicardsburg.
He definitely recognised him at first glance and also the big black stallion of which he was told the Baron continually boasted.
It was then that he knew almost as if she had called to him that Aletha was frightened.
He realised that her fear was for what the Baron obviously intended.
He wanted to curse him and at the same time he wanted to assure Aletha that whatever happened he would save and protect her.
There was no doubt now that the Baron was gaining on her and was in fact only a few lengths behind her.
In front of them there was no opening into The Palace garden, only the brick wall.
Then, as Miklós saw what she meant to do, he felt as if he was facing a firing squad.
*
Aletha was very conscious of the fact that the Baron was now close behind her.
She had reached The Palace, but did not turn in the direction that would lead her towards the stables.
To do so meant that she would have to pull Nyul in and then the Baron would certainly overtake her.
She was very sure that he intended to snatch at her reins.
She would be powerless to stop herself from being led away beside the black stallion, back to the Baron’s Castle.
‘Save – me! Save – me!’ she cried in her heart.
Then, as the brick wall loomed ahead of her, she knew what she must do.
She had never jumped on Nyul and anyway the wall was too high and too solid to risk anything quite so dangerous.
But it was her only hope.
She spoke to Nyul softly, feeling that he would understand the predicament that she was in.
As she gathered him for the jump, he leapt into the air carrying her into the sky almost as if he had wings.
It would have been impossible, she knew only too well, for any ordinary horse to manage such a huge jump.
Incredibly Aletha was to think afterwards, it must have been with the help of God and His Angels that Nyul cleared it with less than an inch to spare.
The horse landed, again by exceedingly good fortune, in a flowerbed.
He staggered and nearly fell, but then regained his balance. He was sweating and for the moment completely exhausted.
Aletha kept her seat, but was almost unconscious with the effort.
She closed her eyes and her head drooped on her breast and her hair had come loose with the speed that she had been ridding at.
It fell over her shoulders in a golden cloud.
She had released the reins and was now holding onto the saddle.
She felt overwhelmingly that the whole world was slowly slipping away from her.
Then strong arms were lifting her down from the saddle.
A voice that seemed to come from far far away was saying,
“My darling! My sweet. How could you have done anything so dangerous? I thought you were going to kill yourself!”
She could not answer him, but could only lie limp in Prince Miklós’s arms.
Her head was now resting on his shoulder and he then went down on one knee in order to hold her close against him.
The strength of his arms told her that she was safe.
As he looked down at her pale face, her closed eyes and her glorious hair, something broke within him.
Wildly and passionately he kissed her forehead, her eyes, her cheeks and her lips.
He drew her back to life and it was the only way that he could express his joy that she was not dead.
To Aletha it was as if she had stepped from a Hell of fear into a Heaven of happiness.
It was just impossible for her to open her eyes however hard she might try.
She still felt as if she had drifted a long way into oblivion.
At the same time she could feel the passion of his kisses.
As he held her lips captive, something flickered within her heart and she knew that it was life itself.
“I love you! I love you!” Miklós was saying. “And I thought I had lost you!”
Because there was a note of agony in his voice, Aletha opened her eyes.
His face was very near to hers.
When she saw the expression on his face, she knew how frightened he had been that she would be killed.
‘I-I am – alive,’ she wanted to say to him.
But her lips could not part before he was kissing her passionately again.
Then very gently he stood up and drew her to her feet.
“The Baron,” she screamed as if she had just remembered him, “is close behind me. Oh, save me!”
“The Baron has gone, he knows when he has been defeated,” Miklós assured her. “You are safe now in my arms and I promise that I will never let that demon go anywhere near you again.”
“Oh, Miklós ‒
“I am going to carry you into the house now,” he insisted.
As if he could not help himself, he kissed her again. Now her whole being responded and she thought that lightning flashed in her breast.
There were little flames rising up her throat and touching her lips.
Miklós’s voice was deep and very moving as he averred,
“You are mine! Mine completely and I know now I cannot live without you! How soon will you marry me, my darling?”
She stared at him.
“Are you – really asking me to – marry you?” she whispered.
They were the first words she had spoken since Nyul had jumped so incredibly over the wall.
“You will marry me,” Miklós answered, “if I have to fight the whole world to make you my wife!”
It was so wonderful to hear the words she had longed to hear him say that Aletha closed her eyes again.
He picked her up in his arms and started to carry her towards The Palace.
Only when they had gone a little way did Aletha say in a voice that he could hardly hear,
“Do you – really love me – enough to make me your – w-wife?”
“No one and nothing is of any importance except for you,” Miklós replied.
His lips touched her forehead before he went on,
“It will not be easy, but I love and worship you and we will pray that nothing else will ever be of any consequence in our lives together.”
“Nothing – will – be,” Aletha murmured.
They reached a side door of The Palace and Miklós took her inside.
Aletha was suddenly conscious of her hair falling about her shoulders.
“I don’t – want to be – seen like this,” she whispered.
Miklós smiled.
He put her down, but kept his arm around her.
He opened the door of a room that was not far from where they had come in.
It was one of the many small but beautiful sitting rooms situated on the ground floor of The Palace.
All the pictures were by French artists, such as Bucher, Fragonard and Greuze and the furniture was also French and very old.
“This is a room for love,” he said as he closed the door, “and I am going to tell you, my darling, how much I love you.”
He picked her up again in his arms.
Sitting down on the sofa he cradled her against him as if she was a child.
Then he was kissing her passionately, demandingly and possessively.
Once again they were flying in the sky and it was impossible to believe there was the world beneath them.
*
It was a long time later and, although they had not spoken, Aletha felt as if they had said a thousand things to each other.
There was no need for any explanations.
No need for anything but love.
“How can you make me feel like this?” Miklós exclaimed.
“Like – what?” Aletha asked for the sheer joy of hearing him say it.
“It is something I have never felt before. But then I have never loved anyone as I love you.”
“Could – anything be more – wonderful?” Aletha sighed. “And I was so – unhappy last night.”
“You are not to think about it anymore,” Miklós ordered. “I was mad, crazy, to think that we could ever be without each other.”
The fire was once again back in his eyes as he vowed,
“You are mine and I will kill any man who tries to touch you!”
“I-I think the – Baron intended to take me prisoner,” Aletha volunteered.
“And to escape him you might easily have killed yourself.”
There was a note of horror in Miklós’s voice that was very moving.
“But – I am alive – and I am here.”
“You are, my precious, and now we are going to be married immediately.”
He put her down as he spoke and then rose to his feet.
“I do not intend to waste any more time,” he asserted. “We will go and tell my father that you are to be my wife and there is nothing he or anyone else can say or do to prevent us from being married at once.”
Aletha stared at him in surprise.
Then, as he was kissing her again, it was impossible to tell him the words that trembled on her lips.
As he set her free, she had a sudden glimpse of herself in a gold-framed mirror.
She was horrified at the untidiness of her appearance.
“Let me first go and change,” she said quickly, “and then I have something to tell you.”
Miklós glanced at the clock.
“They will have finished having their breakfast by now,” he said, “and my father will be alone, dealing with his correspondence.”'
He stopped to look at her lovingly before he went on,
“But hurry, otherwise he may become involved with other members of the family before we can tell him what we are planning to do.”
Aletha had no wish for anyone to see her as she looked at this moment.
So she allowed Miklós to take her up a side staircase and he left her at her bedroom door.
“I will come back for you, my lovely one, in ten minutes,” he said, “so hurry. I am afraid of being away from you even for a minute.”
“I will – still be – here,” Aletha promised with a smile.
She knew that he wanted to kiss her again and she quickly went into her bedroom.
She then rang for the maid.
By the time she arrived Aletha had already washed herself and taken off her riding skirt and blouse.
She put on one of her prettiest gowns and had just finished arranging her hair when there was a knock on the door.
She knew that it was Miklós and she could not help running across the room.
It was with the greatest difficulty that she did not throw herself straight into his arms.
“I am – ready,” she said breathlessly.
“You look very lovely.” he answered. “I am determined that we shall be married tonight or at the very latest tomorrow.”
She wanted to tell him there and then why it was impossible and then she saw a servant coming down the passage.
She was silent as Miklós took her down the stairs.
They went across the hall and down another corridor that led them to his father’s study.
Aletha already knew that it was a very impressive but comfortable room.
She thought if she did not have a secret that would surprise them all she would have been nervous.
Instead with her hand held tightly in Miklós’s she felt as if her heart and the whole world was singing.
He loved her!
He loved her enough to marry her whoever she might be.
He strode ahead of her, knocked and without waiting then opened the door of the study.
As they went in, Aletha felt a stab of disappointment as she saw that the Prince was not alone.
Standing beside him at the window was another man.
Then, as the two men turned round, Aletha gave an audible gasp.
It was her father who stood there in front of her.
He looked tall and very distinguished as he always did.
“Papa!”
Her voice rang out as she ran towards him.
She flung herself against him.
“You are – here! How is it – possible? Why have – you come?”
The words seemed to fall over themselves as her father put his arms around her.
Then he said,
“The King of Denmark was ill and therefore all the planned Festivities were cancelled. So I returned home to find that my daughter had been incredibly naughty and had run away!”
Aletha drew in her breath.
“Were you – very – angry with me?” she asked in a wavering voice.
“Very,” the Duke replied, “if I had not been aware that Heywood would take great care of you. But I did not expect to find that in buying my horses for me, he had also taken on the role of your grandfather.”
His eyes were twinkling as he was speaking and then Aletha knew at once that he was not really angry with her.
It was then that she glanced at Miklós and saw his astonishment.
She put out her hand towards him.
“This was the – secret that I wanted to – tell you about,” she confessed.
She thought for a moment that perhaps he would be angry because she had deceived him.
Then he answered,
“Can it really be true that you are the daughter of the Duke?”
“It is really true,” the Duke said before Aletha could reply, “and I have been apologising endlessly to the Prince because my daughter has been deceiving you all!”
“Of course I understand,” Prince Jözsel said, “that in the circumstances, it was the only way that Lady Aletha could travel if she had no proper chaperone.”
“Well, I will look after her now,” the Duke said.
He spoke as if he thought that he must gloss over anything that might affect Aletha’s reputation.
“At least, Your Highness, I shall now have the pleasure of seeing your splendid horses for myself.”
“And, of course, riding them,” Prince Jözsel added with a smile.
Aletha drew herself from her father’s arms.
“Now that you are here, Papa,” she said, “there is something more important than even the horses and Miklós will tell you what it is.”
The Duke held out his hand to Prince Miklós.
“I guessed that was who you are,” he said, “and I am delighted to have the pleasure of meeting you.”
“As Aletha has just said, Your Grace,” Miklós replied, “I have something very important to say and that is that I wish to marry your daughter!”
*
Aletha stood looking at the view.
She thought that nothing in the world could be more beautiful or more compelling.
The mountain where she stood was high above the valley in which a river was glinting in the bright sunshine and there was green meadowland on either side of it.
Beyond was another range of mountains as high as the one on which she was standing at the moment.
Miklós’s house, which was his own private retreat, was small but exquisite.
It had every possible comfort.
They had arrived late last night and this morning she had awoken to think that he must have taken her up to Heaven itself.
“Have you been awake for long?” she asked him when she opened her eyes.
She looked very lovely with her fair hair falling over her shoulders.
“I found it hard to sleep,” Miklós said in his deep voice, “when you were beside me and at last we were alone.”
He was touching her body and a flame began to flicker in her heart.
“I thought all the Festivities and good wishes would never end,” he went on. “I wanted you like this, where no one could disturb us and I could tell you how much I love you from first thing in the morning and again all through the night.”
Aletha laughed.
“Oh, darling, no one – wanted it – more than I did – but I had no idea that it would be so beautiful or that I could be – so happy.”
It had been impossible for Prince Jözsel and the Duke to allow them to be married as quickly as Miklós wanted.
First they had gone to England where he had met most of the Ling relatives, all of whom found him charming and courteous.
They made such a fuss of him that Aletha was half-afraid that he would find somebody he loved more than her.
When they were alone, she expressed her doubts.
But Miklós kissed her so demandingly that he made it very clear how much he wanted her.
He told her a thousand times how frustrating it was for them not to be married, as he had wanted, immediately.
Then at last, with what the Duke called ‘indecent haste’ they were married in the Chapel at Ling Park.
Crowds of their relations had filled the great house and the neighbours’ houses as well.
After a few days honeymoon in England, they had come back to Hungary.
Prince Jözsel had no intention of not celebrating their marriage in style at The Palace.
All the rooms were packed to bursting.
The Wedding Festivities included gypsy music besides a formal ball with the very best orchestra from Vienna.
Johann Strauss had even come himself to The Palace to conduct it.
As Aletha repeated over and over again, how could anybody possibly ask for more?
“All I ever want is you to myself,” Miklós had complained a few times.
At last they had escaped.
This morning Aletha had her first chance of seeing in the daylight how fantastic the view was from Miklós’s house in the mountains.
As he put his arm around her waist, she said,
“Now I know I have reached Paradise.”
“That is how I want you to feel, my precious darling. When I built this house, I thought it was the right setting for me. Now I know it is the right setting for you. You are not a sylph, you are an angel, my angel. Who will always belong to me.”
His lips were on hers.
He kissed her until she felt as if they were touching the sun and its light was burning through them.
“I love you – oh, Miklos – I love you!” she whispered.
“As I love you! And I want to tell you how much, but you are standing precariously on top of a precipice, so I suggest we go back into the house.”
She saw by the fire in his eyes what he intended and exclaimed,
“But darling – we have only just got up!”
“What does it matter?” he asked. “When one is in love, time stands still and I only know that I love you, I want you and you are mine forever.”
Aletha laughed.
She let him take her back to the house.
They walked into the beautiful room with the amazing view over the valley.
It was where they had slept the previous night.
As Miklós closed the door behind them, Aletha put out her arms towards him.
He crushed her against him and she sighed,
“Darling – darling – I love – you! But I am – sure that there is a lot – more for me to – see outside.”
“There is tomorrow and the rest of our lives to see it,” Miklos answered. “At the moment there is only love.”
He carried her to the bed.
Then he was kissing her wildly, passionately and demandingly.
She knew that this was the love that she had prayed for and nothing else in the whole world mattered.
Position, wealth, even beauty itself, could not be compared to the wonder of what they felt for each other.
Then, as Miklos made her his, she could hear the music that was the beat of their hearts.
The sunlight was seeping through their bodies like leaping flames of fire.
The light that came from God and was Divine completely enveloped them.
And then there was nothing either in Heaven or Earth but Love.