_ BOOK XII 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. _