A Monk of Cruta Part 18

Let me try to recall that scene. It is not difficult. His words are ringing still in my ears, and his white, pa.s.sionate face seems to follow and mock me wherever I look. I see it out there in the white moonlight, and it rises up from the dark corners of the room. It haunts me, and I hate it! I hate him as a woman hates any one who comes between her and the man she loves!

We were alone, Paul and I; at least, we thought so. I had heard no one enter, nor had he. But suddenly a voice rang out and filled the room; a fierce, cruel voice, so changed and hardened with pa.s.sion that I scarcely recognised it. But when we sprang up, and peered through the twilight of the chamber we saw him standing close to us,--so close that he might even have heard our whispered words to one another.

There had been some ceremony at the monastery amongst the hills where most of his time here is spent, and he had evidently come straight from there. His flowing black robes were splashed with mud and torn by brambles, and his white face was livid with exhaustion and anger. His dark eyes burned like fire in their hollow depths, and his right hand was raised above his head, as though he had been on the point of striking or denouncing us. I shall not forget his appearance while I live. It will haunt me to my dying day.

I think that it is the mystery of it all which tortures me so. What has Paul to fear from him? Whence comes his power? What evil is it which he holds suspended over his head? There is only one that I can imagine. Father Adrian must hold the key to that awful deathbed scene at the monastery of Cruta. As I write the words, my hand shakes, my heart sickens with the horror of that memory. Well have I cause to shrink from all thought of that hideous night;--I, to whom the son of Martin de Vaux has become the dearest amongst men! What was it Paul said to me? "He knows something which my father told him whilst he lay dying." Is it that knowledge which gives him this strange power? I did not believe in it! I would not have believed in it! But, in that dreadful moment, I turned to Paul, and I saw his face!

A volley of words seemed trembling on Father Adrian's lips; yet he did not speak. We waited for the storm to burst; we waited till I could bear the silence no longer, and I felt that if it was not broken I should go mad. So I drew near to him, and spoke a single word in his ear. Then I glided back to Paul's side.

"Spy!"

He treated the insult as one might treat the bite of an insect in the face of some imminent danger. He did not reply to it; he did not appear to have heard it. His eyes traveled over me, as though they had been sightless, and challenged Paul's. In the excitement of the moment, his words sounded tame, and almost meaningless.

"This is your answer, then, Paul de Vaux! Let it be so! I accept your decision!"

There was no defiance in Paul's answer. His manner was quite subdued.

I think that both his words and his tone surprised me.

"You have seen! I am in your hands!"

I looked from one to the other, troubled. I felt that there was a hidden meaning in their words which I could not understand. There was something between them from which I was excluded. But this much I knew. There was a threat in Father Adrian's words, and it was I who was the cause of it. Oh! if this man should bring evil upon Paul! The thought of it is like madness to me! See, there goes my pen! I cannot write when I think of it!

I have opened my window. The very air is sad with the moaning of the sea, and the rustling of the night breeze in the thick, tangled shrubbery below. But to me it is sweet and grateful! I am in no mood for pleasant sounds or sights. The dreariness of the night finds its echo in my heart. The damp breeze cools my forehead! To-night I feel conscious of a new strength. It is the strength of hate! My mind is full of dim purposes; time will aid them to gather strength! As they group themselves together, action will suggest itself. To time I leave them!

Let me go back to my recital of what pa.s.sed between us three. A strange lethargic calm seemed to have fallen upon Paul. He turned to me without even a single trace of the pa.s.sion which had lit up his face a few moments before.

"I must go!" he said quietly. "Farewell!"

I could scarcely believe that he meant it; that he was going away without another word, at what was really this priest's unspoken bidding. But it was so. From that moment, the fear of Father Adrian which had grown up in my heart leaped into a new strength. I was angry, and full of resistance.

"Why should you go?" I cried. "I have much to say to you!"

"I must go now, Adrea," he answered simply. "When I came I had no thought of staying. It is late!"

I felt my face grow hot with pa.s.sion as I turned swiftly round towards Father Adrian. "It is you who should go," I cried. "Why have you come here? Why are you always creeping across my life like a dark, noisome shadow? Go away! Begone! I will not be left with you!"

He turned a shade paler, but he did not sacrifice his dignity, as I hoped that he would, by answering me with anger. He did not even answer me at all. He looked over my head at my lover.

"To-morrow night!" he said calmly.

"To-morrow night!" Paul answered.

I stood between them, angry but helpless. A log of wood had just fallen from the fire on to the hearth, and in its sudden blaze I could see their faces distinctly. The utter contrast between the two men threw each into strong relief. Paul, in his scarlet coat and riding clothes, pale and impa.s.sive, but _debonnaire_; and Father Adrian, his strange black garb mud-bespattered and disordered, and his dark, angry face livid with the pa.s.sion so hardly suppressed. It was odd to think of them as creatures of the same species. Odder still to think that there should be this link between them.

I walked with Paul to the door, holding to his arm, and talking, half-gaily, half-reproachfully, all the way. We stood on the step together while his horse was being brought round, and in the half-lights he stooped down and kissed me. But his manner had changed.

Even his lips were cold, and his eyes were no longer bright. There was a far-away look in them, and his face was white and set. There were tears in my eyes as I watched him ride away on his great brown horse, and listened to the distant thunder of hoofs across the moor. His face had told its own story. He was nerving himself to face some expected danger. From whose hands? Surely from Father Adrian's.

The thought worked within me. I stood for a moment, trying to quiet my pa.s.sion. As I turned away I heard the stable-yard doors open, and a carriage, laden with luggage, drove slowly out, and, without coming to the front at all, turned down the avenue. I ran out, heedless of my slippers, and called to it to stop. The man obeyed me, and I caught it up, breathless. The blinds were closely drawn, but I opened the door.

As I expected, it was she who sat inside, closely veiled and weeping.

"You were going, then, without a single word of farewell!" I cried reproachfully. "Is that kind? Have I deserved it from you?"

She threw up her veil. Her eyes were red and swollen with weeping. She looked at me pleadingly.

"Do not blame me more than you can help!" she said. "It was a great shock to me to see you--with the son of Martin de Vaux. It was more than a shock; it was a horror to me! He is like his father! He is very like his father!"

I knew that she had pa.s.sed through a fiery sea of suffering, and I kept back the anger which threatened me. I pointed upwards.

"We cannot keep the dark clouds from gathering in the sky, nor can we make love come and go at our bidding. We are but creatures; it is fate which ordains!"

She bowed her head. "Fate, or the unknown G.o.d! I am not your judge, child! I do not leave you in anger!"

"Why do you go, then, and leave me here alone? It is not kind! It is not what I should expect from you!"

The tears started again into her eyes, but she shook them away. "I cannot explain as yet," she said. "You will think me ungrateful, I fear! I cannot help it! I must go. Farewell, Adrea!"

A sudden thought came to me. It was an inspiration. "You are not going of your own free will," I cried. "Some one has been influencing you!"

Her face was suddenly full of nervous terror. "Hush! hush!" she cried.

"He will hear you! Let me go now! Let me go, I beseech you!"

I held her hands. "It is Father Adrian who is sending you away," I cried pa.s.sionately. "He is my enemy. I hate him! Why should you obey him? Stay with me! Do, do stay!"

She looked at me as one would look at an ignorant child who blasphemes. "You are talking wildly! Father Adrian is far from being your enemy. You do not understand!"

Her voice had changed; the note of sympathy had died away. I turned away from the carriage door in despair. Father Adrian's power was greater than mine.

"You can go!" I said bitterly. "You would have left me here without one word, at his bidding. As you say, I do not understand."

She leaned forward, with a strange light in her eyes. "Child," she whispered, "I am going to Cruta."

The carriage drove away and I walked back to the house. The air seemed full of voices, and the grey rising mists loomed into strange shapes.

Cruta! She was going to Cruta! What power had this man in his hands to send my lover from me with a heart like a stone, and this woman back into the living h.e.l.l from which she had just freed herself. It was my turn now! Would he be able to subdue me to his bidding? The thought made me shudder.

I ran upstairs into my room, and bathed my forehead, and re-arranged my gown. Then I set my teeth together, and went down to him. It was to be a battle! Well! I was prepared!

It is over now. I know his strength, and I know his weakness. What pa.s.sed between us I shall put down to-morrow. To-night I am weary.

CHAPTER XXII

"OH! HEART OF STONE, YET FLESH TO ALL SAVE ME"

This is exactly what happened after I regained the house. I went upstairs for a few minutes to arrange my hair and bathe my eyes. Then I walked straight down to the drawing-room, and I told myself that I was prepared for anything that might take place.