: Dilemmas of Pride (Vol 2 of 3) by Loudon Mrs Margracia - Fiction

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rom table; "Well, I am glad, Alfred, you have returned in time not to allow your beautiful heiress to be run away with. Willoughby has been paying fierce love in that quarter I assure you. However, I should hope that with his ninety thousand a-year of his own, he has no serious intention of interfering with your making so desirable a match."

Mrs. Dorothea had effected her exit by the time she finished her speech, so that fortunately no answer was required. An awkward silence however followed; for though all the ladies had by this time departed in various directions, Geoffery's presence precluded any thing like confidential conversation between the brothers.

Accordingly, with as much ease of manner as he could assume, he proposed to Willoughby and Geoffery that they should accompany him in a morning visit to Jessamine Bower.

"I suppose you forgot to ask Mrs. Dorothea's permission before you fall in love," murmured Geoffery aside to Willoughby, as they passed out; "how absurd it is of aunts and mothers to suppose that they are to dictate to young men in these matters; but women love to hear themselves talk."

Lady Palliser not being at home, Alfred was spared the trial of this first visit, and felt that the respite, even till evening, was a sensible relief.

Geoffery, after a vain effort to draw Willoughby to the billiard rooms, repaired thither himself; and the brothers, thus left to each other's society, wandered on into a quiet walk, and naturally fell into confidential conversation.

So well had Alfred hitherto acted his part, and so successfully did he during this interview conceal his emotions, that Willoughby was gradually led to open his whole heart, to dwell with enthusiasm on his attachment, and even to speak of his hopes. He would not have approached this latter part of the subject had he not at length mistaken Alfred's fortitude for indifference, and persuaded himself that prudential considerations must have been chiefly influential in tempting his brother to seek the hand of Caroline.

"I cannot tell you how happy you have made me, Alfred," he said, "by returning among us, and in such good spirits. And remember," he added, "that whenever and wherever you may fix your ultimate choice, it will be my joy to forward your views to the utmost of my power. Whatever settlement the lady's family shall require, you may command at my hands; I speak without limit."

Alfred made an evasive, but affectionate and grateful reply.

"There are cases," replied Alfred, with mournful solemnity, "which certainly require a more than common exertion of fortitude to carry us through the hour of trial. Impulses, however, of a sinful tendency must not only be resisted, but from the first they must be dismissed from our very thoughts; they must not be dwelt upon even to be condemned, lest our minds become, as it were, familiar with crime, and one barrier be thus broken down."

"Fortitude!--reason!" repeated Willoughby. "Alfred," he added, laying both his hands on his brother's shoulders, "I fear I am already in a delirium! I have intoxicating hopes, yet I know not if they are rational; for there are times when I conjure up fears and calculate chances, till breathless and with beating pulses I could almost rush on self-destruction as a refuge from the mere possibility of ultimate failure!" While uttering the words self-destruction, he looked wildly round for a moment, as if in search of the means.

Alfred was indescribably shocked: the painful surmise which, on less important occasions, had frequently crossed his imagination, now struck him with redoubled force. His sympathy with his brother, mingled as it was with the strange circumstances of his own case, became a sort of agony. "Why should you, my dear Willoughby," he said, "who can command every means of enjoyment this earth has to offer--why should you give way to dreams, so wild, so incoherent? Banish all such thoughts, and let me have at least the happiness of seeing you happy." An anxious inquiring look was Willoughby's only reply to this. He shrank unconsciously from seeking any unwelcome confession--a selfish feeling, of which he was not aware, secretly urging him to believe without probing too deeply, that Alfred was comparatively indifferent. In silence, therefore, the brothers now bent their steps homewards, Alfred reflecting the while on the peculiar cruelty of his fate; for if a miracle could now be wrought in his favour, and Caroline be restored to him all he had once believed her, his compassion for Willoughby, he felt, would render the remainder of his own life wretched. Yet how did his heart sicken at the thought of the scenes he must witness, the confidences he must hear, the thoughtless railleries he must parry, if he would act successfully the part which he felt it his duty to maintain: for why should he wantonly embitter for another the cup of joy which he was himself forbidden to taste; that other a brother whom he fondly loved--a brother who he knew loved him with the most enthusiastic affection? in short, in a futurity now become evidently unavoidable, he beheld, as it were, all the appalling apparatus of torture displayed before him, yet felt necessitated to submit his spirit to agony, with almost the stern fortitude of an Indian chief, yielding his limbs to the cruelty of his foes.

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