repeated in a hollow tone,
inexpressibly mournful: "Let the young man live, and the old name die
with Guy Darrell. Ay, ay! see how the world sides with Youth! What
matters all else so that Youth have its toy!" Again his eye hurried on
impatiently till he came to the passage devoted to Lady Montfort; then
George saw that the paper trembled violently in his hand and that his
very lips grew white. "'Serious apprehensions,'" he muttered. "I owe
'consideration to such a friend.' This man is without a heart!"

He clenched the paper in his hand without reading farther. "Leave me
this letter, George; I will give an answer to that and to you before
night." He caught up his hat as he spoke, passed into the lifeless
picture-gallery, and so out into the open air. George, dubious and
anxious, gained the solitude of his own room, and locked the door.

CHAPTER III.

AT LAST THE GREAT QUESTION BY TORTURE IS FAIRLY APPLIED TO GUY
DARRELL.

WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT? What will Guy Darrell do with the thought
that weighs on his brain, rankles in his heart, perplexes his dubious
conscience? What will he do with the Law which has governed his past
life? What will he do with that shadow of A NAME which, alike in
swarming crowds or in lonely burial-places, has spelled his eye and
lured his step as a beckoning ghost? What will he do with the PRIDE from
which the mask has been so rudely torn? What will he do with idols so
long revered? Are they idols, or are they but symbols and images of holy
truths? What will he do with the torturing problem, on the solution of
which depend the honour due to consecrated ashes, and the rights due to
beating hearts? There, restless he goes, the arrow of that question in
his side--now through the broad waste lands--now through the dim woods,
pausing oft with short quick sigh, with hand swept across his brow as
if to clear away a cloud;--now snatched from our sight by the evergreens
round the tomb in that still churchyard--now emerging slow, with
melancholy eyes fixed on the old roof-tree! What will he do with it? The
Question of Questions, in which all Futurity is opened, has him on its
rack. WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT? Let us see.

CHAPTER IV.

Immunis aram si tetigit manus,
Non sumptuosa blandior hostia,
Mollivit aversas Penates,
Farre pio et saliente mica.--HORAT.

It is the grey of the evening. Fairthorn is sauntering somewhat sullenly
along the