e had been some ceremony at the monastery amongst the hills where
most of his time here is spent, and he had evidently come straight
from there. His flowing black robes were splashed with mud and torn by
brambles, and his white face was livid with exhaustion and anger. His
dark eyes burned like fire in their hollow depths, and his right
hand was raised above his head, as though he had been on the point of
striking or denouncing us. I shall not forget his appearance while I
live. It will haunt me to my dying day.

I think that it is the mystery of it all which tortures me so. What
has Paul to fear from him? Whence comes his power? What evil is it
which he holds suspended over his head? There is only one that I can
imagine. Father Adrian must hold the key to that awful deathbed scene
at the monastery of Cruta. As I write the words, my hand shakes, my
heart sickens with the horror of that memory. Well have I cause to
shrink from all thought of that hideous night;--I, to whom the son of
Martin de Vaux has become the dearest amongst men! What was it Paul
said to me? "He knows something which my father told him whilst he lay
dying." Is it that knowledge which gives him this strange power? I
did not believe in it! I would not have believed in it! But, in that
dreadful moment, I turned to Paul, and I saw his face!

A volley of words seemed trembling on Father Adrian's lips; yet he did
not speak. We waited for the storm to burst; we waited till I could
bear the silence no longer, and I felt that if it was not broken I
should go mad. So I drew near to him, and spoke a single word in his
ear. Then I glided back to Paul's side.

"Spy!"

He treated the insult as one might treat the bite of an insect in
the face of some imminent danger. He did not reply to it; he did not
appear to have heard it. His eyes traveled over me, as though they
had been sightless, and challenged Paul's. In the excitement of the
moment, his words sounded tame, and almost meaningless.

"This is your answer, then, Paul de Vaux! Let it be so! I accept your
decision!"

There was no defiance in Paul's answer. His manner was quite subdued.
I think that both his words and his tone surprised me.

"You have seen! I am in your hands!"

I looked from one to the other, troubled. I felt that there was a
hidden meaning in their words which I could not understand. There
was something between them from which I was excluded. But this much
I knew. There was a threat