But jealousy?  Oh, no!  What had he to do with jealousy?  For his part, he was quite delighted with this new attachment—­quite delighted; it would set at rest for ever the painful controversy so often agitated in his own breast.  Nevertheless, it must be confessed that he felt the rivalry of Captain Garland in a very different manner from that of Sir Frederic Beaumantle.  The baronet, by virtue of his wealth alone, would obtain success; and he felt a sort of bitter satisfaction in yielding Emily to her opulent suitor.  She might marry, but she could not love him; she might be thinking of another, perhaps of her cousin Reginald, even while she gave her hand to him at the altar.  But if the gallant captain, whose handsome person, and frank and gentlemanly manners, formed his chief recommendation, were to be the happy man, then must her affections have been won, and Emily was lost to him utterly.  And then—­with the usual logic of the passions, and forgetting the part of silence and disguise that he had played—­he taxed her with levity and unkindness in so soon preferring the captain to himself.  That Emily should so soon have linked herself with a comparative stranger!  It was not what he should have expected.  “At all events,” he would thus conclude his soliloquy, “I am henceforward free—­free from her bondage and from all internal struggle.  Yes!  I am free!” he exclaimed, as he paced his room triumphantly.  The light voice of Emily was heard calling on him to accompany her in a walk.  He started, he flew.  His freedom, we suppose, gave him wings, for he was at her side in a moment.

Reginald had intended, on the first opportunity, to rally his cousin upon her sudden attachment to the captain, but his tongue absolutely refused the office.  He could not utter a word of banter on the subject.  His heart was too full.

On this occasion, as they returned from their walk through the park, there happened one of those incidents which have so often, at least in novels and story-books, brought about the happiness of lovers, but which in the present instance served only to bring into play the most painful feelings of both parties.

A prize-fight had taken place in the neighbourhood, and one of the numerous visitors of that truly noble exhibition, who, in order to do honour to the day, had deprived Smithfield market of the light of his countenance, was returning across the park from the scene of combat, accompanied by his bull-dog.  The dog, who doubtless knew that his master was a trespasser, and considered it the better policy to assume at once the offensive, flew at the party whom he saw approaching.  Emily was a little in advance.  Darcy rushed forward to plant himself between her and this ferocious assailant.  He had no weapon of defence of any kind, and, to say truth, he had at that moment no idea of defending himself, or any distinct notion whatever of combating his antagonist.  The only reflection that occurred to his mind was, that