A Monk of Cruta

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

"A BECKONING VOICE FROM OUT A SHADOWY LAND"

Midnight rang solemnly out from the Abbey clock. The priest paused in his story to count the strokes, and Paul drew out his watch with an incredulous gesture.

"You must stay here to-night," he said; "it will be too late for you to leave."

He rang the bell, and ordered a room to be prepared. Father Adrian, who had been lost in a fit of deep abstraction, looked up and shook his head as the servant quitted the room. "I shall not stay here," he said quietly. "It is impossible."

Paul pointed to the clock. "You have more to tell me," he said, "and it is already late. If you are staying at the monastery of St. Bernard, it is nearly eight miles away, and you cannot possibly return."

"I have not so far to go," Father Adrian answered, "and this is the hour I always choose for walking. Do you wish to hear the rest of your father's confession?"

Paul stood on the hearthrug with bowed head and folded arms. "I am ready!" he said; "go on!"

Father Adrian remained silent for nearly a quarter of an hour; then he recommenced his story.

"'From the time of the old Count's visit,' your father went on, 'I noticed a gradual change in Irene. She grew thin and pale and nervous, disliking more and more, every day, to go out, and becoming suddenly averse to all our previous pursuits and pleasures. We mixed amongst a Bohemian set in Paris, and we had a good many acquaintances of a certain sort. Amongst them was a man whom I always disliked, yet who managed somehow to establish himself upon terms of intimacy with us. His name was Count Victor Ferdinand Hirsfeld, and his nationality was rather a puzzle to me, for he chose to maintain, without any apparent reason, a sort of mystery about it. With Irene he was ever more intimate than with me, and more than once I noticed references in their conversation which seemed to point to some previous acquaintance between them. I asked Irene no questions, for I trusted her but I watched Count Hirsfeld closely. I felt convinced that, under the mask of friendship, he was trying to win Irene from me, and though I never for one moment believed that he would succeed, I was anxious to obtain some proof of his intentions, that I might punish him. Often after his visits, which seemed to be carefully chosen for a time at which I was nearly certain to be out, I found Irene in tears; but when I sought to make her explain, she had always some excuse.