On Willoughby's arrival at Arden, he strained every power of his mind to hide from his brother the true state of his feelings; and, to a certain degree, succeeded; his strange manner inducing in Alfred a belief that it was the immediate prospect of the fulfilment of his wishes, which had unsettled his intellect; for, that it was to a certain degree unsettled, this affectionate brother could not help detecting, in the extravagance, the sometimes almost terrific wildness, of the gaiety assumed by Willoughby. It is impossible to describe the wretchedness of Alfred, while with an aching heart, he watched the flushed cheek and flashing eye of his brother, and listened to the strange unnatural sound of his laugh. We may say, without in the slightest degree exaggerating the disinterestedness of our hero, that every thought of self was forgotten, in the miserable excess of sympathy which the extraordinary circumstances of others now called forth. It was not only for his brother, that brother to whom from infancy he had been so tenderly attached, that he now felt the cruellest apprehensions; but what was also to be the fate of Caroline, and what would be the misery of their mother, the sorrow of the whole family, if, indeed, the awful infliction he had so long dreaded, had at length fallen upon them? Or even, were this excitement which now alarmed him so much, to subside again for the present, how dreadful was the prospect opened by its having ever assumed so serious a form; and the inconsistency of Willoughby's conduct and manner, the incoherence of his expressions in his ill-sustained attempts at conversation, put the fatal truth beyond a doubt. Yet, were all those symptoms so far to abate, that no eye less watchful, less practised to watch than his own, could detect the lurking malady, was it fair, was it honourable, to involve in so frightful a family affliction, the happiness of a being as yet unconscious of it? Yet who could, who would, who ought to interfere? Delicacy and all good feeling for ever forbade that any surmise should proceed from him. Oh impossible! quite impossible! Fate must roll on, and overwhelm whom it would, he must be passive! But he was more: instinctively he strove to conceal from servants, and the few country neighbours whom chance threw in their way, the hourly increasing infirmity of his brother; treating, while such were present, his extravagance as hilarity, and every contradiction and inconsistency as an intended jest; adding thus the while, by the violent and unnatural contrast to his own secret sufferings. CHAPTER XVIII.