"This is not Central Park. You shall hear me."
"Let me go, Mr. Wickersham," she said imperiously. But he held her firmly.
At that moment she heard an oath behind her, and a voice exclaimed:
"It is you, at last! And still troubling women!"
Wickersham's countenance suddenly changed. He released her wrist and fell back a step, his face blanching. The next second, as she turned quickly, old Adam Rawson's bulky figure was before her. He was hurrying toward her: the very apotheosis of wrath. His face was purple; his eyes blazed; his massive form was erect, and quivering with fury. His heavy stick was gripped in his left hand, and with the other he was drawing a pistol from his pocket.
"I have waited for you, you dog, and you have come at last!" he cried.
Wickersham, falling back before his advance, was trying, as Lois looked, to get out a pistol. His face was as white as death. Lois had no time for thought. It was simply instinct. Old Rawson's pistol was already levelled. With a cry she threw herself between them; but it was too late.
She was only conscious of a roar and blinding smoke in her eyes and of something like a hot iron at her side; then, as she sank down, of Squire Rawson's stepping over her. Her sacrifice was in vain, for the old man was not to be turned from his revenge. As he had sworn, so he performed. And the next moment Wickersham, with two bullets in his body, had paid to him his long-piled-up debt.
When Lois came to, she was in bed, and Dr. Balsam was leaning over her with a white, set face.
"I am all right," she said, with a faint smile. "Was he hurt?"