"Don't talk now," said the Doctor, quietly. "Thank God, you are not hurt much."
Keith was sitting in his office in New Leeds alone that afternoon. He had just received a telegram from Dave Dennison that Wickersham had left New York. Dennison had learned that he was going to Ridgely to try to make up with old Rawson. Just then the paper from Ridgely was brought in. Keith's eye fell on the head-lines of the first column, and he almost fell from his chair as he read the words:
DOUBLE TRAGEDY--FATAL SHOOTING
F.C. WICKERSHAM SHOOTS MISS LOIS HUNTINGTON AND
IS KILLED BY SQUIRE RAWSON
The account of the shooting was in accordance with the heading, and was followed by the story of the Wickersham-Rawson trouble.
Keith snatched out his watch, and the next second was dashing down the street on his way to the station. A train was to start for the east in five minutes. He caught it as it ran out of the station, and swung himself up to the rear platform.
Curiously enough, in his confused thoughts of Lois Huntington and what she had meant to him was mingled the constant recollection of old Tim Gilsey and his lumbering stage running through the pass.
It was late in the evening when he reached Ridgely; but he hastened at once to Dr. Balsam's office. The moon was shining, and it brought back to him the evenings on the verandah at Gates's so long ago. But it seemed to him that it was Lois Huntington who had been there among the pillows; that it was Lois Huntington who had always been there in his memory. He wondered if she would be as she was then, as she lay dead. And once or twice he wondered if he could be losing his wits; then he gripped himself and cleared his mind.
In ten minutes he was in Dr. Balsam's office. The Doctor greeted him with more coldness than he had ever shown him. Keith felt his suspicion.
"Where is Lois--Miss Lois Huntington? Is she--?" He could not frame the question.
"She is doing very well."