Lady Palliser not being at home, Alfred was spared the trial of this first visit, and felt that the respite, even till evening, was a sensible relief.

Geoffery, after a vain effort to draw Willoughby to the billiard rooms, repaired thither himself; and the brothers, thus left to each other's society, wandered on into a quiet walk, and naturally fell into confidential conversation.

So well had Alfred hitherto acted his part, and so successfully did he during this interview conceal his emotions, that Willoughby was gradually led to open his whole heart, to dwell with enthusiasm on his attachment, and even to speak of his hopes. He would not have approached this latter part of the subject had he not at length mistaken Alfred's fortitude for indifference, and persuaded himself that prudential considerations must have been chiefly influential in tempting his brother to seek the hand of Caroline.

"I cannot tell you how happy you have made me, Alfred," he said, "by returning among us, and in such good spirits. And remember," he added, "that whenever and wherever you may fix your ultimate choice, it will be my joy to forward your views to the utmost of my power. Whatever settlement the lady's family shall require, you may command at my hands; I speak without limit."

Alfred made an evasive, but affectionate and grateful reply.

"That we may be sometimes mistaken in the strength, or rather the reality and consequent durability of our feelings," continued Willoughby, "I am now fully aware from my own experience. I thought myself very sincerely attached to Lady Anne Armadale, and for a short time after her worthless breach of faith, I believed myself quite miserable; yet how deeply am I, in point of fact, indebted to her ladyship for giving me an opportunity of being undeceived before it was too late! You see, my dear Alfred," he added, smiling, and looking round in his brother's face, "that a disappointment is not always an irremediable misfortune." Alfred had not time to assume cheerfulness of countenance; and Willoughby sighed as he continued, "Not always, I say; for how widely different are my present feelings. I sometimes shudder when I think how little they are within my own control! Alfred," he added, suddenly standing still, and laying his hand on his brother's arm, "if the hopes to which I have now given up my whole soul prove less than true, I shall—become a madman!" he subjoined, after a moment's pause. "You can have no idea," he pursued, "of the wildness of my thoughts, when I give way to a doubt——" A long silence followed, which Willoughby at length broke by saying, "I am well aware that suicide is one of the greatest of crimes; yet without even visible or absolute insanity, I can imagine the balance of the mind being so entirely upset on one all-engrossing object, as to render us for the time no longer accountable beings."

"There are cases," replied Alfred, with mournful solemnity, "which certainly require a more than common exertion of fortitude to carry us through the hour of trial. Impulses, however, of a sinful tendency must not only be resisted, but from the first they must be dismissed from our very thoughts; they must not be dwelt upon even to be condemned, lest our minds become, as it were, familiar with crime, and one barrier be thus broken down."

"Fortitude!—reason!" repeated Willoughby. "Alfred," he added, laying both his hands on his brother's shoulders, "I fear I am already in a delirium! I have intoxicating hopes, yet I know not if they are rational; for there are times when I conjure up fears and calculate chances, till breathless and with beating pulses I could almost rush on self-destruction as a refuge from the mere possibility of ultimate failure!" While uttering the words self-destruction, he looked wildly round for a moment, as if in search of the means.

Alfred was indescribably shocked: the painful surmise which, on less important occasions, had frequently crossed his imagination, now struck him with redoubled force. His sympathy with his brother, mingled as it was with the strange circumstances of his own case, became a sort of agony. "Why should you, my dear Willoughby," he said, "who can command every means of enjoyment this earth has to offer—why should you give way to dreams, so wild, so incoherent? Banish all such thoughts, and let me have at least the happiness of seeing you happy." An anxious inquiring look was Willoughby's only reply to this. He shrank unconsciously from seeking any unwelcome confession—a selfish feeling, of which he was not aware, secretly urging him to believe without probing too deeply, that Alfred was comparatively indifferent. In silence, therefore, the brothers now bent their steps homewards, Alfred reflecting the while on the peculiar cruelty of his fate; for if a miracle could now be wrought in his favour, and Caroline be restored to him all he had once believed her, his compassion for Willoughby, he felt, would render the remainder of his own life wretched. Yet how did his heart sicken at the thought of the scenes he must witness, the confidences he must hear, the thoughtless railleries he must parry, if he would act successfully the part which he felt it his duty to maintain: for why should he wantonly embitter for another the cup of joy which he was himself forbidden to taste; that other a brother whom he fondly loved—a brother who he knew loved him with the most enthusiastic affection? in short, in a futurity now become evidently unavoidable, he beheld, as it were, all the appalling apparatus of torture displayed before him, yet felt necessitated to submit his spirit to agony, with almost the stern fortitude of an Indian chief, yielding his limbs to the cruelty of his foes.

No sooner did he enter the drawing-room than his sisters began to teaze him, first about the length of his visit; and when they found he had not been admitted, one observed that a runaway lover did not deserve the favour of an audience; another asked archly, if he had commissioned Willoughby to take the sole charge of Caroline in his absence. Lord Darlingford, who was holding a skein of silk on the extended fingers of both hands for Jane to wind, being unconscious how painful the subject was to Alfred, said that he would not suspect Mr. Arden of conduct so imprudent, for that love-making by proxy was universally acknowledged to be extremely perilous.

Louisa declared that with her the lover who was present was always the favourite. Sir James, who was standing beside her, giggled, and drew a step nearer. An expression of disgust passed over her countenance, which, however, she concealed, by stooping closer to her scrap-book, into which she was writing some passionate lines given her by Henry, of the ardour of whose manner when he last repeated the said lines she was reflecting at the moment.

Jane thought, but did not say, that absence would rather add tenderness to feeling where it did exist; without, however, daring to associate the thought with the idea of one now absent—and who had once been remembered with tenderness—for his marriage with another had some time since appeared in the Morning Post.

Madeline, whose heart was free, expressed openly the sentiment Jane had secretly thought, though not without one of those prophetic blushes which will suffuse the cheeks of even disengaged young ladies at the very anticipation of being one time or other in love in their turn.