Alfred sometimes thought that possibly he ought so far to conquer his scruples as to write to his mother, and communicate to her, in strict confidence, his apprehensions respecting the state of Willoughby's mind: but he might recover after a short period of quiet, and then his mother might be spared the pang: and he could not, as he had before decided, even within the bosom of his own family,—he could not, be the consequence what it might, bring himself to be the first to suggest such a thought. His mother, of course, would not suspect him of a base desire to grasp at his brother's birth-right, and of a consequent quicksightedness in discerning the approaches of this frightful visitation; but there were those who might so misjudge him. It was, however, he thought, at least his duty to prepare his mother's mind in some degree for whatever might be the result, by saying, that he did not think Willoughby quite well: this, therefore, he did in one or two of his letters. Yet Willoughby himself made no complaint; and to servants and occasional visiters appeared to be in particularly good health and spirits. We remark this now because the comment subsequently becomes important.

After a few days, however, Willoughby, like one who had run at full speed as long as his strength would permit, flagged; his efforts were first less sustained, then his gaiety became confined to wild bursts of noisy mirth, while at length whole hours, with a seeming unconsciousness of the lapse of time, were passed in gloomy abstraction. The bursts of seeming mirth, however, were always assumed when servants or strangers were present; the gloom and abstraction given way to only when alone with his brother.

Willoughby had always felt, and often expressed, great horror of persons being opened after death: to this subject he now recurred with a frequency, and clung to it with a pertinacity quite extraordinary; adding the most solemn injunctions to Alfred to be the protector of his remains whenever he should die.

"You will then be master here," he would say; "every thing will then be yours; my very body I bequeath to you—I make it your property: do not, Alfred, I conjure you, suffer the defenceless corse of your poor brother to be mangled. It would be hard indeed," he would sometimes subjoin, with a wild ironical laugh, "if a man could not find rest even in the grave."

On occasions like these Alfred would sit beside him, and endeavour to sooth him by every kind and rational argument he could devise; not unfrequently Willoughby would appear entirely deaf to all that could be urged; while at other times, he would take Alfred's hand, thank him with gentle kindliness of manner, and hope that he might yet be as truly happy as he deserved to be; joining with this latter expression an earnest and expressive solemnity which almost seemed a blending of prophecy with the prayer of affection. He often talked of having a foreboding that he should die young.

"But why, my dear brother," Alfred would reply, "give way to such thoughts? Why should you die young? You have no ailment, no care, no sorrow——"

"It may be a silly fancy, yet I am possessed with the idea:"—this much Willoughby said with well-acted carelessness. "My only anxiety in dying," he added, with a suddenly altered tone, and an inquiring look of the most mournful tenderness, "is for you, Alfred; I fear you will feel it severely; but do not!—do not! Why should any one be miserable?—I shall not be missed, except by you: no selfish happiness, I know, will enable you entirely to forget me. My mother is kind, very kind; but you were always her favourite—and that in time will reconcile her—"

Caroline was in Alfred's thoughts; her name even trembled on his lips, but he had not courage to give it utterance.

"You speak wildly," he said, "my dear Willoughby; you not missed! you—who—who—you who love and are beloved." Willoughby laid his hand on Alfred's, and looked anxiously in his face for some moments, but continued silent; at length he moved his lips, as if about to speak; then pressing his brother's hand, dropped it, and exclaimed, "I cannot!—I cannot!" An instant after he burst into a passion of tears, and laying his head on Alfred's shoulder, wept like a child, till relieved by giving way to his feelings, though completely exhausted, he seemed to sleep. In a few seconds, however, he started, looked up, and repeated anxiously once or twice, "What have I been saying, Alfred? what have I been saying? I think I have been asleep," he added; "but I have lately got into a strange habit of laying awake the whole night: it is merely a habit. Sleep is altogether a habit, I think. I don't sleep at all now, as I tell you; and yet you see I am perfectly well!"

Alfred looked mournfully at him, and replied, "Would to heaven you were, Willoughby! Do," he added, anxiously, "let us go to town; you ought to take some medical advice; if, as you say, you do not sleep, you cannot be well."

"Well—I am perfectly well I assure you—shall we ride?" he added, rising and calling his two beautiful greyhounds that lay on the rug before the fire: "I wonder, by the by," he continued, "if they have laid the poison which I ordered for the rats in the stable-lofts; shall we go out at the back way, and I'll see to it myself."

Willoughby hurried out, Alfred followed, and heard him inquire with great precision respecting the poison, and give, in the most rational manner, precautionary directions against mistakes or accidents in its use. A servant in reply pointed out a shelf in the saddle-room, where it lay perfectly apart from all articles of food; and showed both the gentlemen that the outward paper was, according to a usual and very proper precaution on the part of druggists and apothecaries, strongly marked in very large letters—"Poison, Arsenic." The characters too, though done with a pen, were those of print, which made them more strikingly legible to every eye.

The brothers now proceeded to ride as Willoughby had proposed; Alfred, however, could think of nothing but the poison: he had often heard of the most artful preparations on the part of deranged persons, and he could not banish the idea that Willoughby had made the particular inquiries he had just heard with a view to possessing himself of the arsenic; and he determined, lest this should indeed be the case, that he would, as soon as he returned to the house, privately take away the packet from where he had seen it, and put it in some place of security. If the fearful project of self-destruction did indeed dwell among the wanderings of his brother's mind, the quiet removal of the means would not only prevent the immediate execution of his fatal purpose, but might by possibility change the current of his thoughts into some more healthful channel. Accordingly, as soon after their return as he could find a convenient opportunity, he repaired to the said saddle-room, and not wishing to confide his fears to any one, possessed himself, unobserved as he supposed, of the paper of arsenic, which he locked up carefully in his own escritoire, feeling, as he did so, almost a security, that he had thus for the present, at least, removed one danger from the reach of his poor brother; for as Willoughby had been scarcely out of his sight, since they came back from their ride, there was no reason to fear that the mischief was already done: nor did it indeed occur to Alfred, when he found the packet laying where he had seen it in the morning, that without displacing the whole, sufficient for the purpose he dreaded might have been taken away.

For the remainder of the day, and especially during dinner, he observed that Willoughby's manners were more than ever strange and inconsistent; and that his efforts at gaiety were fewer and worse sustained than on any former occasion; yet, as long as the servants were present, extravagant. While, the moment the brothers were alone, there was an overflow of mournful tenderness, and an expression of the same character in his countenance which filled Alfred with the most harrowing sensations. Yet a circumstance had occurred when they were riding, which had in a great measure allayed his immediate fears, and given his thoughts too, a somewhat new direction. They had met with a neighbouring squire who, possessing little either of tact or delicacy, and also thinking himself privileged as being not only an old man but an old acquaintance, immediately began to rally Sir Willoughby on the report of his approaching marriage.

Willoughby saw that Alfred watched him anxiously; and, being rendered by the presence of a stranger doubly determined to keep his secret to the last, he aroused himself to great exertion and replied with astonishing coolness, at the same time admitting the fact of his intended marriage, that the event to which the squire alluded was not to take place so immediately as he seemed to imagine, for that previously to his becoming a benedict he was to join his friends at Paris, and proceed with them on a tour which would occupy some months.

The old gentleman at parting commended him for showing Lady Anne Armadale so soon how little he thought of her, and congratulated him on the great superiority of his present choice, both in beauty and fortune. The gloom and abstraction of Willoughby after this was so marked that it suggested to Alfred the possibility of his not having yet conquered his first attachment, and of his having entered into his present engagement more out of pique than preference. How strange and absorbing for a time were the speculations occasioned by such a surmise, while some of them were calculated almost to reawaken selfish regrets, yet were these again checked by the appalling thought that such a supposition strengthened his worst fears; contending emotions were more likely seriously and permanently to unsettle the mind than the excitement, however great, of a successful attachment; at least, to suppose such a cause, it was necessary to take for granted a predisposition stronger than there was, perhaps, sufficient grounds to believe did exist.

That disease however, was present, whatever the cause, there could be no doubt; and Alfred firmly resolved, therefore, if he could not the very next day prevail with Willoughby to accompany him to town, that he would send thither for the first medical advice that could be obtained, and also entreat his mother to come to Arden. For he now began to fear with infinite self-reproach that he had already carried delicacy on this point too far.