A Monk of Cruta

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

I answered him softly, with my eyes fixed upon the ground. "I came because I was lonely. Let us go away from here! Come home with me!"

"Home with you! Home with you!" He repeated my invitation. He scarcely seemed to understand.

"Yes! I was very silly the other day! I did not understand you! I did not understand myself! And you see I have humbled myself very much! I have come to tell you so! Am I forgiven?"

I raised my eyes to his, and added in a half whisper: "Won't you come home with me, and read aloud, as we used to on the rocks at Cruta?"

He stood there as though fascinated. I began to feel impatient, but I dared not show any signs of it.

Suddenly he took a quick step towards me, and before I could prevent it he had thrown himself at my feet on the cold stone floor, and was holding my hands tightly in his.

"Adrea!" he cried, his voice choked with passion, "is this thing true? My brain reels with the delight of it; but, oh, forgive me if I seem to doubt! I know nothing of women, but surely your lips could never lie! You are not mocking me? Oh, Adrea, my love, lift up your eyes and swear that this is no dream. I am dizzy with joy! Speak to me! Let me look into your face! I am not doubting you, yet say it once more! Tell me it is not a dream!"

I lied to him with my face, and with my eyes, and with my lips. "It is no dream," I said softly. "I have come to you, Adrian, because I want you. No one else would do."

He stood up, pale and shaken. His voice was still full of deep, throbbing earnestness. "Adrea!" he cried, "to-day I have been fighting a grim fight. Look into my face and mark its traces. I am desperate! For hours I have knelt on what was once a hallowed spot. In vain! In vain! On my knees before the cross of Calvary I have striven to pray, as a man wrestles for his life with the waves of a great ocean. Alas! alas! In the twilight I fancied always that your face was moving amongst the shadows, and even the breeze which rustled in the shrubs around seemed ever to be murmuring your name. Oh, my love, my love, sometimes I wonder that I have lived through the anguish of these days. But it is over! You have come to me, and the evil days are past. I renounce my priesthood! It has become only a barren farce to me! Heaven or hell, what matters it? I leave here with you to-night never to return! Never! never! never!"