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