Explore "A Monk of Cruta" by E. Phillips Oppenheim on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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 had seen nothing save his outline since they had entered the room. But now, his curiosity stirred by the sudden silence of the priest, he caught up the poker, and broke the burning log in the grate, so that the flames threw a quick light on his face.
Its extreme pallor struck him forcibly. It was a perfectly bloodless face, and the dark eyes, as black as jet, accentuated its pallor. Yet there was no lack of nervous strength or emotion. The thin lips were quivering, and the eyes were soft with feeling. Somehow, it seemed to Paul that this man's interest in the story which he had come to tell was no casual one; that he himself was mixed up in it, in a manner which as yet he had chosen to conceal. His colourless face was alight with human interest and sympathies. Who was this priest, and why had he come so far to tell his story? Paul felt that a mystery lay behind it all.