Page:Flute and Violin and Other Kentucky Tales and Romances.djvu/178

160 of the recesses. The few poor pictures of saints and martyrs on the walls were muffled in gloom. The air was dank and noisome, and the silence was that of a vault.

Standing half in light and half in darkness, Father Palemon awaited the coming of his august superior. It was an awful scene. His face grew whiter than his cowl, and he trembled till he was ready to sink to the floor. A few moments, and through the dim door-way there softly glided in the figure of the aged abbot, like a presence rather felt than seen. He advanced to the little zone of light, the iron keys clanking at his girdle, his delicate fingers interlaced across his breast, his gray eyes filled with a look of mild surprise and displeasure.

"You have disturbed me in my rest and meditations. The occasion must be extraordinary. Speak! Be brief!"

"The occasion is extraordinary. I shall be brief. Father Abbot, I made a great mistake in ever becoming a monk. Nature has not fitted me for such a life. I do not any longer believe that it is my duty to live it. I have disturbed your repose only to ask you to receive the renunciation of my priestly vows and to take back my cowl: I will never put it on again."

As he spoke he took off his cowl and laid it on the table between them, showing that he wore beneath the ordinary dress of a working-man.

Under the flickering spark the face of the abbot had at first flushed with anger and then grown ashen with vague, formless terror. He pushed the hood back from his head and pressed his fingers together until the jewelled ring cut into the flesh.

"You are a priest of God, consecrated for life.