A Monk of Cruta

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

Paul awoke with a start. "Certainly!" he said gravely. "I am ready."

Father Adrian continued, speaking slowly and keeping his eyes fixed steadily upon Paul; "Only a few nights ago we met amongst the ruins of your old Abbey. You will remember that I spoke to you of your father's last hours, of a strange story confided to my keeping—a story of sin and of sorrow—a story casting its shadow far into the future. You remember this?"

"Perfectly!"

"At first you seemed to consider that this story, told to me on his deathbed by a man who was at least repentant, should be held sacred—sacred to me as a priest of the Holy Church, and sacred to you as his son. Yet, as you saw afterwards, it was not so. The confession was made to me as a man; and withal it was made by one outside the pale of any religion whatever. It was mine to do as I chose with! It is mine now!"

"If it is anything which concerns me, or the honour of my family, you should tell me. If it involves wrongs which should be righted, or in any way concerns the future, you should tell me. You must have come for that purpose! You must mean to eventually, or why should you have found your way to this out-of-the-way corner of the world. Let me hear it now, Father Adrian!"

"It will darken your life!"

"I do not believe it! At any rate I will judge for myself. Let me hear it!"

The priest looked away into the darkness, and his voice was low and hoarse. "You do not know what you ask!" he said. "No, I shall not tell you yet. It is for your own sake! Sometimes I think that I will go away and never tell you."

"Why not? You came here for no other reason."

Father Adrian shook his head. "I did not come to tell you. It was your home I came to see. Many hundreds of years ago Vaux Abbey was a monastery, sacred to the saint whose name I unworthily bear. My visit here was half a pilgrimage! But," he went on, his brows contracting, and his eyes gleaming fire, "since I came, I have been perilously near striking the blow which I have power to strike. You bear a name which for centuries was foremost in the history of our sacred Church. For generation after generation the De Vauxs were good Catholics and the benefactors of their Church. Your chapel was richly adorned, and five priests dwelt here always with old Sir Roland de Vaux. And now, where is your chapel, once the most beautiful in England; it is a pile of ruins, like your faith! I wander round in your villages. Your tenants have gone the way of their lord. Roman Catholicism is a dying power. Hideous chapels have sprung up in all your districts! The true faith is neglected! And who is to blame for it all? Your recreant family. You, who should have been the most zealous upholders of religion, have drifted down the stream of fashion, nerveless and indifferent. Oh! it is heresy, rank heresy, to think of a De Vaux, such as you, dwelling indifferent amongst the mighty associations of your name and home! I wander about amongst those magnificent ruins of yours, æsthetically beautiful, but nevertheless a living, burning reproach, and I ask myself whether I do well in holding my peace. I cannot tell! I cannot tell!"