The story of his former disappointment, and of such recent occurrence too, he reflected, with a very disproportionate share of uneasiness, would now be renewed, coupled with the present affair: he should become a proverb--a byword--an object for the finger of scorn to point at. Then the wild excitement of the hope with which, despite his fears, he had with strange inconsistency fed his passion; this was gone, and he could not endure the void within; while it was upon the brain, the fever seemed to feed. Whether there was a physical cause for this, such as Alfred had sometimes feared; or whether the attachment, though violent, being recently formed, still dwelt more in the imagination than in the heart, it might be difficult to decide; but the effect on Willoughby was that some active principle of misery and evil seemed urging him on to a frantic resistance of his fate; compelling his very pulses to beat at a maddening pace; causing an alternation of quickened and suspended breathing, which fatigued him sensibly; and the while presenting to his imagination, snatches of thoughts, and visions of projects so terrific, that while they were in fact the effects of incipient insanity, they became, in their turn, by the fearful excitement they produced, powerful causes of its future development. There was still an inward struggle, but it ended fatally. He could not--no, he never would pronounce her name again! He--in whom else he would have confided every thought--he it was who was preferred; and, though he could not feel a rival's hatred towards his kind, his generous, his unoffending brother--no, he did not, he would not even love him less; but still there was a remembrance that he was his rival; and with it thoughts, strangely blended, of littleness, and the wildest, most extravagant generosity. Alfred should have all--love, wealth, title; and then Lady Palliser could no longer object; but he must wait--it might be for a few days, perhaps only a few hours--nay, the sooner the better; why should he live but to cause and to endure misery? Endure!--did he endure? Can powerlessness to resist the decrees of fate, while yet the heart and feelings openly and wilfully rebel against them, be called endurance? Certainly not. But alas, such rebellion brings with it its own punishment. How often had Willoughby, while fearing the worst, inwardly vowed that were he indeed destined to disappointment, he would never survive the blow. Now the blow had fallen, and though his heart secretly turned towards his habitual, his earliest, his deepest seated affection, the love he bore his twin brother, he was pledged, as it were, to resist every gentler emotion, to embrace despair! and unhappily he did so.