He had always entertained towards Alfred an affection much stronger than, from the strangeness of his temper, was known to any one but himself, or perhaps even to himself. His thoughts were now absorbed and saddened by the remembrance that Alfred was not happy. He felt a fastidious repugnance to draw happiness himself from the same source which had caused, and was still causing his brother pain; and rather than run the risk of aggravating that pain, he doubted whether it would not be better to relinquish at once an acquaintance of only a few days. He almost wished he had gone to town with Alfred; yet town had unpleasant associations for him just then. For a time, guided by feelings such as we have described, he almost avoided Caroline; yet a fatality seemed to hang upon him. Though he told himself again and again that she was but the acquaintance of an hour, it seemed as if the matured attachment of Alfred had, by some mysterious tie, by some identity of sympathies existing in nature between the twin brothers, flung its spell, from the first interview, over the heart of Willoughby, as though those more than brothers scarcely enjoyed a divided being, but that the wishes and affections of both were still united by hidden links, which irresistibly propelled them to one object. The very efforts which Willoughby made not to attach himself to our heroine seemed to invest his feelings with a seriousness, a pathetic tenderness, so strangely mingled with his pity for Alfred, that while he sometimes sat apart, yet unable to withdraw his gaze from the mild and lovely features of Caroline, his sensations approximated to torture. Her beauty appeared to him, the more he gazed upon it, Nature's only perfect work. That any one could admire any other style, any other lovely being, seemed to him a thing impossible. His former fancied attachment he now saw to have been indeed but a dream of vanity, and that it had touched any other feeling. He could not, however, maintain the struggle long; he soon began to seek for arguments favourable to his wishes. Alfred's love, he told himself, could not bear comparison with his in fervour, or he would have persevered longer--he would have renewed his offer again and again. The attachment was not mutual, Caroline having herself rejected him. Such an attachment then would, in all probability, soon be forgotten; then why, if he could, make himself acceptable, might he not be happy? In a little time he arrived at the certainty that Alfred would himself be generous enough to rejoice in his happiness. Lady Palliser's encouragement was decided. Caroline's indeed was but passive. Geoffery, however, himself believing his cousin's attachment to be a hopeless one, pretended to point out many marks of a hidden preference, which he said could not be mistaken, averring that a cool looker-on was better able to judge than a party interested.