The policeman's jaw dropped a bit. He looked distinctly troubled. A lady came out just then and asked that the injured girl be brought into her house, and, as the policeman stooped to help Leslie lift her, he exclaimed: "God be good to us! Wh-y it's Miss Dorothy Lawton! Won't there be ructions when the old man at home hears of this! Them girls are just his two eyes! What's that? Will I be leavin' you free of arrist till the doctor comes? What kind of a bounder do you take me for, anyway? I'll leave you free till you'll be gettin' the little colleen safe home, sure, and thin maybe you'll show up and stand for a fine and the like? Divil take that gang out there!" and out he charged upon the crowd. Finding himself for a few precious moments alone with Dorothy, who was lying on a settle in a hall, Galt began a hurried search of his breast-pocket. He brought out a small box, and, opening it, was shaking out into his palm a glittering ring, when a faint moan reached his ear, and, bending over, he saw the blue eyes he loved slowly open, saw the dazed look passing, and as glad recognition dawned in them he swiftly took her hand, and slipping the ring upon her finger, he whispered, rapidly, urgently: "Little Dorothy, listen! Try to understand! And oh, try, too, to forgive me! But you are hurt, dear, and that I may have the right to protect and care for you, I--I--oh, Dorrie, see, dear!" He lifted her hand that she might see the ring. "I have dared to claim you, sweet--have declared you my promised wife! For God's sake, don't deny me! Promise!" But Dorothy promised nothing. The faint blush that had crept into her cheek died there. The wide-amazed eyes slowly closed, and in utter silence she slipped back into the unconsciousness in which the doctor presently found her. CHAPTER XVII THE COSTUMING OF JULIET While Dorothy was taking prominent and uncomfortable part in that impromptu "Wild West" show on Broadway, in picturesque and hilly Yonkers, Sybil, in New York, sat in Mrs. Van Camp's old-timey drawing-room and fairly astounded her hostess by confiding to her Mrs. Lawton's evident desire to marry Dorrie to William Henry Bulkley. "Has Letitia gone stark, staring mad?" she exclaimed. "Why, the man is the merest nobody, who could no more name his grandfather than he could fly! Money he has--yes, of course! But money without family can't balance the public flaunting of all his coarse amours, his bad manners, and worse temper! She must perfectly remember, too, the life he led his poor wife--who was, by the way, a member of the Massachusetts Stone family. Why, her great-uncle was a judge, and her second cousin was lieutenant-governor of the State. How she ever came to accept young Bulkley is a mystery. But she paid for her folly, poor thing. However, I shall take it upon myself to inform Letitia Lawton of some of the atrocities of his recent years, and tell her that as his wife Dorothy would be as dead socially as if she were over in Greenwood."