A Monk of Cruta Part 6

"Good-evening, sir! Good-evening, madam! I thank you!"

They rode on down the avenue, Paul silent and absorbed, and making no attempt to pursue the conversation. At the bend of the lane he turned round in his saddle. The priest was standing with his back to them, motionless and silent as a figure of stone.

CHAPTER VII

"WHO ARE YOU, AND WHAT YOUR MISSION?"

The winter moon, soft and bright and full, looked down upon the ruins of Vaux Abbey. A strange beauty lay upon the bare, rock-strewn hillside and desolate moor. Afar off a grey, brawling stream was touched by its light, and in its place a band of gold seemed coiled around the grey, sleeping hill. A black, reed-grown tarn at the foot of the Abbey gleamed and quivered like a fair silver shield. The dark pines which crowned their sandy slopes lost their forbidding frown in an unaccustomed softness, and every harsh line and broken pillar of the ruined chapel was toned down into a rich, sad softness. A human face, too, uplifted to the sky, so silent and motionless that it seemed almost set into the side of one of those groined arches, had lost all its harshness and worldliness in the glow of that falling light. It might have been the face of a saint, save for the vague unhappiness which shone in the clear, dark eyes; for at that moment, spirituality, wistfulness, and reverence seemed carved into the white, still features. But there was disquiet, too; and, after a while, as though some cloud had pa.s.sed across the moon, a dark shade stole into the white face. The brows were contracted into a frown, and the eyes filled with restless doubt. Father Adrian moved away from the shadow of the pillar, and stood, tall and motionless, on the ruined chapel floor, with his eyes fixed upon the distant landscape. After a moment or two, his lips began to move and he commenced to speak aloud in a low, deep tone.

"Six nights has my voice gone up to G.o.d from amongst these silent ruins, six nights I have prayed in rain. These fair, still evenings mock me! Whose is their beauty, if it be not G.o.d's; and, if there be a G.o.d, and if the Blessed Virgin, our Holy Mother, indeed dwells amongst the stars, why are their faces turned from me? Oh! that man knew a little more or a little less--enough to pierce the mystery of yon star-crowned heavens, or so little as to gaze on them unmoved and unfeeling! What is our little knowledge? A mockery, a dreary, hopeless mockery! I had better have rotted in that miserable monastery, a soulless, lifeless being, than have stepped out to struggle with a world which is only a terrible riddle to me. I cannot reason with it; I cannot laugh or weep with it; I am in it, but not of it! Why was I sent? Oh I why was I sent?"

The snapping of a twig caused him to turn suddenly round. Paul de Vaux was advancing through the ruins, with a loose cloak thrown over his evening clothes.

Father Adrian turned round to meet him. The two men stood for a moment face to face without speaking. Both recognised that this interview was to be no ordinary one; and in a certain sense, each seemed to be measuring the other's strength. It was Paul who spoke first.

"We have met before, Father Adrian."

"Yes."

"You will scarcely wonder that I am surprised to see you here in England. Have you left the monastery at Cruta?"

"I left it a month after you did."

"But your vows,--were they not for life?" Paul asked.

Father Adrian smiled scornfully. "I was not bound to Cruta," he answered. "There had been complaints, and I was there to investigate them. The monastery was poverty and disease-stricken. It is closed now forever."

"Then you are no monk?"

Father Adrian shook his head. "I am, and I am not. In my youth I served my novitiate, but I never took the oaths. The cloisters are for holier men than I."

"Then who are you?"

"I am--Father Adrian, priest of the Roman Catholic Church, I can tell you no more."

The moonlight was falling full upon his dark, striking face. Paul, with bent brows, scanned every feature of it intently. Father Adrian bore the scrutiny without flinching and without discomposure. Only once the colour mounted a little into his cheeks as the eyes of the two men met.

"What brings you to Vaux Abbey, Father Adrian?" Paul asked at length.

"To see your home," was the quiet reply.

"What do you want with me? It must be something more than curiosity which has brought you all this way. What is it?"

Father Adrian was silent. Yet his silence was not one of confusion.

He was looking down through the gaps in the ruined chapel walls at the dark Gothic front of the old Abbey. Paul waited for an answer, and it came at last.

"I wished to see the home of Martin de Vaux, the Englishman who died in my arms at the monastery of Cruta. For six nights I have prayed for his soul in Purgatory, amongst the ruins here. He died in grievous sin!"

"Have you come to remind me of it?" Paul asked bitterly. "Perhaps you have repented of your silence, and have come to break the widow's heart by telling her the story of his last moments. Perhaps--perhaps in those dark hours he told you his secret--told you why he had come to Cruta!"

"He did," said the priest gravely.

"My G.o.d!"

It was a great shock to Paul. Hitherto he had feared only one thing: that the story of his father's tragical death might come to light, and break his mother's heart. Now there was more to fear,--far more. He looked into Father Adrian's face with a new and keener interest. He recognised at once that everything dear to him in life might be at this man's mercy.

"You were intrusted with this secret by a dying man," Paul said, with a little hoa.r.s.eness in his tone. "It is to you as the secrets of the confessional!"

The priest shook his head gently. "He refused to confess. He told me distinctly that it was as man to man he spoke to me."

Paul looked away into the night with white, stricken face, and cursed his father's weakness. Supposing that this priest had discovered that his conscience would not allow him to keep the secret! What more likely! Why else was he here,--why else did he disclaim the confessional? There was only one other alternative! Perhaps he desired to trade upon his secret. Yet how was that possible? Of what use could money be to him? What could he gain by it? Besides, his was not the face of an adventurer.

"I do not understand," Paul said at last. "Once more let me ask you, Father Adrian, why are you here?"

Father Adrian looked thoughtfully away. "You ask more than I can tell you," he said gravely. "The time has not yet come. We shall meet again. Farewell!"

The priest turned away, but Paul laid his hand on his shoulder.

"If there is anything which you ought or mean to tell me, tell me now," he demanded hoa.r.s.ely. "I can bear everything but suspense. I know only--that there was a secret. No more. Proceed! Tell me more!"

The priest shook his robe free from Paul's restraining hand, and turned away.

"Not yet! Not yet! My mind is not yet clear. We shall meet again.

Farewell!"

"But----"

"Farewell!"

The priest had pa.s.sed from the ruins, and was already out of sight in the gathering darkness.

"Come back, Father Adrian! One word more!"

"Farewell!"

The priest did not turn his head. Paul was left alone, gazing after him with stern, troubled face and anxious heart. It was a danger which he had always foreseen, always dreaded. Henceforth he must live like a man who paces, day by day, the brink of a volcano. At any moment the blow might fall.

CHAPTER VIII

"I AM WEARY OF A HOPELESS LOVE"