A Monk of Cruta

"The time was short--short indeed. Yet, why should you fear? Your confession has been made! I myself have pronounced your absolution; the holy Church has granted to you her most...

A tall, fair young man stood in the small alcove of Lady Swindon's drawing-room, with his eyes fixed upon the door. He was accurately dressed in the afternoon garb of a London m...

Paul started. He had been standing, like a man in a dream, with folded arms, looking across the room with idle eyes, and unconsciously ignoring many salutations. His brother's t...

As I have removed myself altogether from all association with the humdrum existence which might have been mine, I am naturally friendless for the present. So far as the other se...

"Quite well; I was with him yesterday afternoon. There's nothing the matter. London was boring me, that's all, and I thought I'd run down here and have a look at the old place,...

Paul turned quickly around in his saddle towards the young lady who had addressed him. He looked into a fair, thoughtful face, whose general amiability was discounted, just then...

The winter moon, soft and bright and full, looked down upon the ruins of Vaux Abbey. A strange beauty lay upon the bare, rock-strewn hillside and desolate moor. Afar off a grey,...

Paul and Arthur shared a bachelor residence in Mayfair; shared it, that is to say, insomuch as Paul had purchased it, and was the sole proprietor, and Arthur used it whenever he...

Paul found no one in the hall of the house where Adrea lived to take him to her, so after waiting a few minutes for her maid, whom the porter had twice fruitlessly summoned, he...

"I think not," Lady May replied, from the depths of an easy chair drawn up to the fire. "Altogether it has been a glorious day, and such a scent! I don't know when I have enjoye...

This evening I have had an adventure! I am thankful, for it has occupied my thoughts for awhile; and for anything that does that I am grateful. I had been in the house all day,...

To-night I have had another shock! I was sitting alone in my room down-stairs, dreaming over the fire, when a footstep sounded upon the stairs. At first I thought that it might...

A north-country storm of rain and wind had suddenly blown up from the sea, and the few remaining followers of the De Vaux hounds were dispersed right and left, making for home w...

A shade passed across the man's face, and he laid his hand quickly upon his heart, as though to cease some sudden pain. Then he stood on one side, holding the door open.

It was Adrea--Adrea herself! She stood there in the shadow of the doorway, with her lips slightly parted, and her great eyes, soft and brilliant, flashing in the ruddy firelight...

It was a cry which seemed to ring through the room, an interruption so sudden and strange that they started apart like guilty children, gazing towards the lifted curtain which d...

Paul and his companion walked down the avenue in silence, and turned into the narrow, stony road which wound across the moor. The storm was over, and the rain had ceased. Above...

"I am not sure about the name. It is a foreign lady, and her step-daughter, I believe. There is a clergy-man--or a Roman Catholic priest, rather--too; but he may be only a visit...

It was with a strange conflict of feelings that Paul, with Adrea by his side, passed across the square, low hall of the cottage, plentifully decorated with stags' heads and othe...

The situation, although it was only a brief one, was for a moment possessed of a singularly dramatic force. The grouping and the colouring in that dimly lit drawing-room were al...

I am scarcely calm enough to write! Yet I must write! My heart is full; my very pulses are throbbing with excitement! What is it that has happened? It is all confused in my mind...

This is exactly what happened after I regained the house. I went upstairs for a few minutes to arrange my hair and bathe my eyes. Then I walked straight down to the drawing-room...

An early darkness had fallen upon the earth. Black clouds had sailed across the young moon, and the evening breeze had changed into a gale. There was no rain as yet, but every p...

Paul had not thought of ringing for lights, and, save around the fireplace, the room was wrapped in solemn darkness. Father Adrian's chair had been amongst the shadows, and Paul...

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 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 nea...

The lamp which stood on Paul's writing-table had gone out, and only a few dull red embers remained in the grate. By moving a single yard backwards, Paul was almost lost in the d...

To-night I shall close my diary for a long while, very likely for ever. I am heartily thankful for it. These last few days have been so wretched, full of so much miserable uncer...

We were alone, Paul and I, in that great, solemn room, full of pale, phantom-like lights and quivering shadows. He was standing a few yards away from me, with his head half aver...

A cold twilight followed close upon the day. The sky was strewn with dark clouds, and a wild wind blew in my face. I was on an unknown road, and in all my life I had seen nothin...

What a hoarse, clanging sound! I shivered as I stood there listening to its gloomy echoes until they died away. No one came. The place seemed wrapped in an austere silence. I li...

A strange figure stood on the edge of the castle cliff, looking across the bay of Cruta to the sea. He was tall, loose jointed, and gaunt, and the long grey beard and unkempt lo...

The little group of fishing smacks, homely-looking and uncleanly, on close examination, presented a very different appearance from the deck of the English yacht fast nearing the...

It was a long, steep ascent, hewn out of the solid rock; but at last Paul stood before the great gates of the castle, and paused to take breath. Hundreds of feet below him his y...

She was dead, and, after all, her end had been crowned with peace. She did not hear the door thrown roughly open, the swelling of angry voices, or the fast-approaching tramp of...

I had no thought of writing in you again, my silent friend. Only a little while ago I said to myself, the time has gone by when solitude and heart hunger could drive me to your...