A Monk of Cruta by E. Phillips Oppenheim — Read

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 pages for consolation. Only a little while ago, it is true; and yet between the past and future is fixed a mighty gulf. As I write these words I stand upon the threshold of death! What death may mean, I know not! I have no religion to throw bright gleams of hope upon its dark mysteries. I have no hope of any other life, save the one I am quitting! If I am resigned and calm, it is because the lamp of my life has burnt out, and I am in darkness. I wait for death as a maiden waits for the first gleams of dawn on her marriage day.

Who said that love was everlasting? They lied! Love is a dream, a floating shadow full of golden lights, quenched by the first breath of morning! Who should know, if I do not know? Who has done more for love than I -- I whose hands are red with blood, I who this night must die? It was for his sake, I struck -- for his sake! and now that the hour of my punishment must come, I sit here alone and forsaken, waiting for the signal which must end my life! It was for his sake! A death-white face rises up before me, and a hoarse, dying cry sobs ever in my ears! I pass on my way through the Valley of the Shadow of Death with no hope to cheer me, forsaken, friendless, and shaken with dim fears! Am I alone! He for whom I struck has turned from me. Oh, the bitter cruelty of it! It was he who taught me what love was, and yet of love he knows nothing, else I would not be here to meet my doom alone! Oh! Paul, Paul! Oh, for one touch of your hand, for one kind look!