Fenley heard the ripping sound instantly.
"Ha! There you are, my beauty! Got you this time!" he cried, and plunged forward.
Sylvia sprang from her hiding-place like a frightened fawn and valiantly essayed the steep embankment. Therein she erred. She would have succeeded in evading her pursuer had she leaped down to the open strip of turf close to the water, dodging him before he realized what was happening. As it was, the briers spread a hundred cruel claws against her; with each upward step she encountered greater resistance; desperation only added to her panic, and she struggled frenziedly.
The man, unhampered by garments such as clogged each inch of Sylvia's path, pushed on with renewed ardor. He no longer spoke, for his hearing alone could help him now, the girl's black-robed form being utterly merged in the dense shadow cast by brushwood and cedars. He, however, was silhouetted against the luminous gray of the park, and Sylvia, casting a frantic glance over her shoulder, saw him distinctly. In her distress she fancied she could feel his hot breath on her neck; and when some unusually venomous branch clutched her across the knees, and rendered farther movement impossible until her dress was extricated, she wailed aloud in anger and dismay.
"How dare you!" she cried, and her voice was tremulous and broken. "I warn you that if you persist in following me I shall strike you!"
"Will you, by Jove!" cried Robert elatedly. "I'd risk more than that, my dear! A kiss for every blow! Only fair, you know! Eh, what!"
On he came. He was so near that in one active bound he would be upon her, but he advanced warily, with hands outstretched.
"Oh, what shall I do!" she sobbed. "Go back, you brute! I—I hate you. There are policemen in the wood. I'll scream for help!"
"No need, Miss Manning," said a calm voice which seemed to come from the circumambient air. "Don't cry out or be alarmed, no matter what happens!"
A hand, not Robert Fenley's caught her shoulder in a reassuring grip. A tall figure brushed by, and she heard a curious sound that had a certain smack in it—a hard smack, combined with a thudding effect, as if some one had smitten a pillow with a fist. A fist it was assuredly, and a hard one; but it smote no pillow. With a gurgling cough, Robert Fenley toppled headlong to the edge of the lake, and lay there probably some minutes, for the man who had hit him knew how and where to strike.