A Monk of Cruta

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

The man looked up and grunted. I followed the boy's glance, and saw a tall, dark woman walking swiftly along on the other side of the road. From the very first her figure was somehow familiar to me, and

She stopped outside the closed door, and hesitated for a moment, as though doubtful whether to ring or not. During her moment of hesitation she glanced round, and I recognised her. She could not see me, for I was in the shadow of the underground tunnel.

"Blarmed if she ain't come again," the man growled. "She's as regular as clockwork! Wonder what she wants!"

I felt my knees trembling; I could not have crossed the road at that moment if it had been to save my life. The boy looked up at me curiously.

"Happen you know her, lady," he remarked. "She's been here at this time, or thereabouts, pretty near every day for a fortnight."

Happen I know her! Yes, that was the boy's odd phrase. It rang in my ears, and I found myself gasping for breath. My eyes were fixed upon that tall, slender figure, clothed in sober black, waiting upon the doorstep with bowed head, and standing very still and motionless. It was like an effigy of patience. There were not two women in the world like that; it was impossible. She was in England, and alone—free! What did it mean? Should I run to her, or hide away? I glanced over my shoulder where the black shadows of the tunnel were only dimly lit by the feeble gaslight. I could steal away, and she would never see me. Yet as I thought of it, the grimy, barren street and the solemn-looking building faded away before my eyes. The sun and wind burned my face; the wind, salt with ocean spray, and echoing with the hoarse screaming of the sea-birds that rode upon it. I was at Cruta again, panting to be free, stealing away in the twilight down the narrow path amongst the rocks to where that tiny boat lay waiting, like a speck upon the waters. And it was she who had helped me—the sad-faced woman who had braved the terrible anger of the man whom we had both dreaded. Again I heard her gentle words of counsel, and the answering lies which should have blistered my lips. For I lied to her, not hastily or on impulse, but deliberately in cold blood. Anything, I cried to myself, to escape from this rock, this living death! So I lied to her, and she helped me. No wonder that I trembled. No wonder that I half made up my mind to flee away into the sheltering darkness of that noisome-looking tunnel.

It takes long to set down in writing the thoughts which flashed through me at that moment. Yet when I had made up my mind the woman was still there, waiting meekly before the closed door.

"You were speaking of her," I said to the boy, who was half-sitting, half-crouching against the side of the tunnel. "What was it you said? I did not hear."