A Monk of Cruta by E. Phillips Oppenheim — Read

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, brawling stream was touched by its light, and in its place a band of gold seemed coiled around the grey, sleeping hill. A black, reed-grown tarn at the foot of the Abbey gleamed and quivered like a fair silver shield. The dark pines which crowned their sandy slopes lost their forbidding frown in an unaccustomed softness, and every harsh line and broken pillar of the ruined chapel was toned down into a rich, sad softness. A human face, too, uplifted to the sky, so silent and motionless that it seemed almost set into the side of one of those groined arches, had lost all its harshness and worldliness in the glow of that falling light.

It might have been the face of a saint, save for the vague unhappiness which shone in the clear, dark eyes; for at that moment, spirituality, wistfulness, and reverence seemed carved into the white, still features. But there was disquiet, too; and, after a while, as though some cloud had passed across the moon, a dark shade stole into the white face. The brows were contracted into a frown, and the eyes filled with restless doubt. Father Adrian moved away from the shadow of the pillar, and stood, tall and motionless, on the ruined chapel floor, with his eyes fixed upon the distant landscape. After a moment or two, his lips began to move and he commenced to speak aloud in a low, deep tone.