ht he
would not notice. He was too wise to raise a further impediment to
his marriage by quarrelling with Emily's brother.

As soon as he paused he was sure that he heard footsteps behind him
which were not those of Everett Wharton. Indeed, he was sure that he
heard the footsteps of more than one person. He stood still for a
moment to listen, and then he distinctly heard a rush and a scuffle.
He ran back to the spot at which he had left his friend, and at first
thought that he perceived a mob of people in the dusk. But as he got
nearer, he saw that there were a man and two women. Wharton was on
the ground, on his back, and the man was apparently kneeling on his
neck and head while the women were rifling his pockets. Lopez, hardly
knowing how he was acting, was upon them in a moment, flying in the
first place at the man, who had jumped up to meet him as he came. He
received at once a heavy blow on his head from some weapon, which,
however, his hat so far stopped as to save him from being felled or
stunned, and then he felt another blow from behind on the ear, which
he afterwards conceived to have been given him by one of the women.
But before he could well look about him, or well know how the whole
thing had happened, the man and the two women had taken to their
legs, and Wharton was standing on his feet leaning against the iron
railings.

The whole thing had occupied a very short space of time, and yet
the effects were very grave. At the first moment Lopez looked round
and endeavoured to listen, hoping that some assistance might be
near,--some policeman, or, if not that, some wanderer by night who
might be honest enough to help him. But he could hear or see no one,
In this condition of things it was not possible for him to pursue the
ruffians, as he could not leave his friend leaning against the park
rails. It was at once manifest to him that Wharton had been much
hurt, or at any rate incapacitated for immediate exertion, by the
blows he had received;--and as he put his hand up to his own head,
from which in the scuffle his hat had fallen, he was not certain that
he was not severely hurt himself. Lopez could see that Wharton was
very pale, that his cravat had been almost wrenched from his neck by
pressure, that his waistcoat was torn open and the front of his shirt
soiled,--and he could see also that a fragment of the watch-chain was
hanging loose, showing that the watch was gone. "Are you hurt much?"
he said, coming