His return to Tarquinia was hailed with delight by every member of his family but one. This was a younger brother, whose position had been greatly improved by the absence and supposed death of Cœlius. He cursed in the bitterness of his heart the fate which had thus restored, as from the grave, the shadow which had darkened his own prospects; and though he concealed his mortification under the guise of a joy as lively as that of any other member of the household, he was torn with secret hate and the most fiendish jealousy. At first, however, as these feelings were quite aimless, he strove naturally to subdue them. There was no profitable object in their indulgence, and he was one of those, cunning beyond his years, who entertain no moods, and commit no crime, unless with the distinct hope of acquisition. It required but a little time, however, to ripen other feelings in his soul, by which the former were rather strengthened than diminished, and by which all his first, and, perhaps, feeble efforts to subdue them were rendered fruitless. In the first bitter mood in which he beheld the return of his brother, the deep disappointment which he felt, with the necessity of concealing his chagrin from every eye, prevented him from bestowing that attention upon the wife of Cœlius which her beauty, had his thoughts been free, must inevitably have commanded. With his return to composure, however, he soon made the discovery of her charms, and learned to love them with a passion scarcely less warm than that which was felt by her husband. Hence followed a double motive for hating the latter, and denouncing his better fortune. Aruns—the name of the younger brother—was, like Cœlius, a man of great talent and ingenuity; but his talent, informed rather by his passions than by his tastes, was addressed to much humbler objects. While the one was creative and gentle in his character, the other was violent and destructive; while the one worshiped beauty for its own sake, the other regarded it only as subserving selfish purposes. Cœlius was frank and generous in his temper, Aruns reserved, suspicious and contracted. The one had no disguises, the other dwelt within them, even as a spider girdled by his web, and lying secret in the crevice at its bottom. Hitherto, his cunning had been chiefly exercised in concealing itself, in assuming the part of frankness, in appearing, so far as he might, the thing that he was not. It was now to be exercised for his more certain profit, in schemes hostile to the peace of others. To cloak these designs, he betrayed more than usual joy at the restoration of his brother. His, indeed, seemed the most elated spirit of the household, and the confiding and unsuspecting Cœlius at once took him to his heart, with all the warmth and sincerity of boyhood. It gave him pleasure to perceive that Aurelia, his wife, received him as a brother, and regarded with delight the appearance of affection that subsisted between them.