A Monk of Cruta Part 22

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 friends.h.i.+p, 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.

"'We had lived together for three years when, without any warning, Irene left me. I came home one night from a dinner at the English Emba.s.sy, and found her gone. There was no message, not a single line of adieu, not a ghost of a clew by which I could trace her. It was a shock to me; but when the first wrench was over, I knew that it was something of a relief. In my heart I was tired of the irregular life we had been leading, and longing to return to England and my old home. Irene herself was no longer dear to me. While she had remained faithful to me, I had considered myself, in a certain sense, bound to her, although the bonds had commenced to gall. Now that she had left me of her own accord, I was free. I troubled little as to what had become of her; youth is always selfish. She had either gone home to her father, or had run away with Count Hirsfeld, I determined at once.

Of the two, I was inclined to believe the latter, from the fact of her having left no message for me, and also as I found that he too had quitted Paris suddenly. I purposely did not attempt to find out, for had I discovered the latter to be true, I should have felt bound to call Count Hirsfeld out the next time I met him, and I hated duelling.

So, with a light heart, I disposed of my Paris establishment, selling even the house, and everything likely to remind me of a page of my history which I desired to blot out.

"'I returned to England, and settled down at Vaux Abbey. In a few months my life with Irene lay back in the past, like a troubled dream, and I did my best to forget it. It was all hateful and tiresome to me. My mind was full now of healthier and more wholesome thoughts and purposes. I felt like a man commencing life anew. Even my conscience had almost ceased to trouble me. Irene had left me of her own will, nor had she been driven to it by any unkindness on my part. I would forget her. I had the right to forget her.

"'About six months had pa.s.sed, and I was in the full enjoyment of my altered life. One night, when the Abbey was full of guests, a servant whispered in my ear, as we sat at dinner, that a gentleman,--a foreigner, the man believed--had just been driven over from the nearest railway station, and was in the library waiting to see me. I knew in a moment that some sort of a resurrection of that buried past was at hand; and though I nodded carelessly and kept my countenance, my heart sank like lead. As soon as I could make an excuse, I left the table, with a brief apology to my guests, and made my way to the library.

"'I had expected to find there Irene's father. Judge of my surprise when I found Count Hirsfeld advancing to meet me, pale and travel-stained, from the shadows of the room. I stopped short, and stood with my hands behind me.

"'"Mr. de Vaux, I bring you a letter," he said simply; "I am here as a messenger, and as a messenger only. Nothing but the prayers of a dying woman would have induced me to stand beneath your roof!"

"'"Your presence certainly needs some explanation," I answered coldly.

"Give me the letter!"

"'He handed it over, and I took it to the lamplight. The handwriting seemed unfamiliar to me; but when I glanced at the last page, I saw that it was signed "Irene." I read it through hastily.

"CRUTA.

"MARTIN:--

"I left you meaning never to speak or write your name again, but fate has been too strong for me. When you see my handwriting, you may fear that I want to burden you once more with my presence, which has grown so wearisome to you! You need not! Soon there will be nothing left of me but a memory; even that I know will not survive long. For I am dying. Life is only a matter of days and hours with me now. For me, only a few more suns will rise and set. I am dying, else I had not taken up my pen to write to you.

"Martin, one's last hours are a time for plain speaking. I have never suffered one word of reproach to pa.s.s my lips, but you have wronged me deeply! You have turned what should have been the sweetness of my life into bitterness and gall. I do not remind you of this to heap idle reproaches on your head; I remind you of it simply because on my deathbed I am going to ask you what in the past I scorned to do. I am going to ask you to marry me.

"I could not hope to make you understand all that I have suffered during these last few months of my illness. I would not if I could. It is not worth while! My father, although he knows that I am dying, will scarcely speak to me. He has forgotten that I am his daughter, save when he laments it.

He sits alone day by day, brooding upon the dishonour of his race. The priest, who prays for me, speaks words of doubtful comfort, as though, after all, he doubted whether salvation were possible for me. The horror of it all has entered into my soul! The sin of the past is ever before my eyes,--black and threatening,--and a great desolation reigns in my heart.

"And from it all I turn to you, Martin, to save me! You can do it! You only! You lose nothing! You risk nothing! and you will throw some faint light of consolation upon this, my dreary pa.s.sage through the shadow-land of death. Once you loved me, far off and dim though that time may seem to you. You would be faithful always, you swore, as side by side we stood on board your yacht on the night of our flight, and watched the sh.o.r.es of Cruta grow dimmer and dimmer, and the white-faced dawn break quivering upon the waters. You would be faithful always!

The words come back to me as I lie here in this great, dreary bedchamber, with a cold-faced priest muttering comfortless prayers by my side; dying alone, without a single kindly face to lighten my pa.s.sage to the grave. Yet, do not read this as a reproach! Read it only as the prelude to this my last appeal to you! Marry me, Martin! It would cost you so little: just a hurried journey here, a few sentences over my bedside, a week's waiting at the most, and you could see me in my grave, and feel yourself free again. Is it too great a thing to do, to make light the heart of a dying woman? I pray G.o.d that you may not think so! You have generosity! I appeal to it! Come, I beseech you! It is the prayer of a dying woman! I summon you to Cruta!

"IRENE."

"'Back again in the meshes of my old sin. The letter fluttered down from between my fingers on to the floor, and I stood with folded arms and bowed head, arraigned at the bar of my own judgment. I had marred a girl's fair young life! The memory of those old days--my pa.s.sionate persuasions and prayers--swept in upon me. Yes! she had trusted me, and I had deceived her! Her sin and her death lay at my door! The hideous rascality of the thing oppressed me. I had been false to my name and traditions.

"'A cold, low voice from the other end of the room broke in upon my surging thoughts. It was Count Hirsfeld who spoke.

"'"Forgive me for disturbing your doubtless pleasant reflections, but time flies, and time is very precious to me just now. I await your answer."

"'"It is not necessary," I replied; "I shall be at Cruta before you!"

CHAPTER XXVI

"LATE THOU COMEST, CRUEL THOU HAST BEEN"

"'I sped through England and across the Continent southwards as fast as express train and steamer could carry me. Count Hirsfeld shared the special which carried me from our nearest country station to the Great Northern junction, from whence the Scotch mail bore us to London. Here we parted company, travelling the remainder of the way separately.

On the evening of the second day, the steamer which I had hired at Palermo dropped anchor in the bay of Cruta, under the shadow of the grim, black castle; and a small rowing-boat landed me beneath the cliffs before night fell.

"'I made my way up the narrow, winding path alone, and pa.s.sing across the paved courtyard, rang the hoa.r.s.e, brazen bell at the princ.i.p.al entrance. A servant, bearing a torch, had opened the door, and was beckoning me to follow him long before its echoes had died away.

"'"Mademoiselle Irene!" I asked him, in a hushed, anxious tone. "She lives?"

"'"She lives!" he repeated sombrely.

"'I followed him along the wide stone corridors, and up countless steps. At last he paused before a door, and after listening for a moment, knocked softly at it.

"'It was opened by a monk, whose face was hidden by the folds of his deep cowl. He motioned me to enter, and immediately closed the door.

"'I found myself in a s.p.a.cious, lofty bedchamber, bare and dimly lit.

Facing me two pale, solemn-visaged monks stood on either side of a drawn curtain, as though guarding the plain iron bed which lay beyond, and towards which I had taken one impulsive step forward. Their presence, and an indefinable gloom,--beyond even the gloom of a chamber of death,--which in the dim twilight seemed to hang about the very air of the place, chilled me. There was little furniture, and no pictures hung upon the walls, save a wooden cross near the foot of the bed, before which two candles were burning. I looked around for some one to whom I could address myself, but there was no one beyond these dark-coated, silent monks, who seemed more like shadows from another world.

"'While I stood in the middle of the room, hesitating, the priest who had admitted me pa.s.sed by and took up his station at the foot of the bed. He motioned me to stand a little nearer, and suddenly the drear silence of the room was broken by the low, monotonous chant of prayers. I bowed my head, and kneeling by the bedside I took up the responses, and once for a moment clasped the white, cold hand which lay upon the coverlet, and which was all that I could see of the woman whom I was making my wife.

"'The ceremony seems to me now like some far-distant dream, of which I retain only the vaguest recollection. When it was all over, I laid my hand upon the curtain to draw it back, but the monk nearest to me held my hand in a vise-like grip, and before I could move, a voice from the other end of the room, where the shadows were deepest, arrested me.

"'"Touch that curtain, or dare to look upon my daughter's face, Martin de Vaux, and you die! For her soul's sake I have permitted this! Now go!"

"'I peered through the darkness, and I saw the tall, gaunt frame of the Count of Cruta standing near the entrance. I hesitated for a moment.

"'"Irene is my wife," I answered. "I offer no excuse to you for my conduct, but at least I have the right to try and win her forgiveness."

"'He moved a step forward, and his voice shook with pa.s.sion. "You have no rights! You are dishonoured! You are a villain! What! you to reason with me under my own roof! Away! Out of my sight, lest I forget my word and deal you out your deserts!"

"'My heart was hot with shame and anger, but I lingered. "Let her speak," I answered, pointing to the bed. "It is she against whom I have sinned, and her word I will obey. Irene! may I not stay by your side? Tell me that you forgive!"

"'I clutched pa.s.sionately at the curtain, resolved to tear it aside, and plead with Irene upon my knees. But I was held from behind in a strong, vise-like grasp, and one of the monks who stood there on guard sternly wrested the curtain from my hands.

"'"Away with him!" cried the Count, his voice shaking with pa.s.sion.

"Rudolph, do you hear!"