"Stop! You must wait for the doctor. She might bleed to death if you moved her. A pretty night's work in a civilized city! Lord, how I wish all you anarchists had one neck! So Silas Bowen has paid her liberally for helping his family! He threw that bomb--aimed it at Hazleton and me, and when it exploded she was struck by something. Leather-headed, black-hearted scoundrel! The police have just marched him off, and the infernal fool ought to be hung from the first lamp-post." An ambulance came up at a gallop, and while the surgeon sprang out and hurried toward the group, Father Temple stepped forward. As the electric light shone full on the upturned face and the wide, fixed eyes, a cry broke from the lips of the priest, who tried to thrust all aside. "My Nona! My own pansy eyes!" The surgeon pushed him back. "I must have room to examine her. Help me lay her across the platform. Here, you! Are you her brother? Take her firmly by the shoulders, so; steady, lower her head." "She is my wife." What was done, and exactly why, none but the surgeon ever understood; those who looked on knew only that jagged cuts were sprayed and closed and bandaged; that the lovely hair was shorn away from a wound at the back of the head, and hypodermics inserted in the arm. No word was spoken until the stretcher was ordered close to the car platform, and the patient was lifted tenderly and laid upon it. Then the thin, shaking hand of the priest clutched the doctor's sleeve. "I have the right to know exactly what you think." "Then I must be frank. She has received probably fatal injuries to spine and brain, and paralysis has resulted. Whether the paralysis will be permanent I cannot say now, because the extent of the shock has yet to be determined." "She is not entirely unconscious." "I am sure she is. On what do you base your opinion?" "I know too well the expression of her eyes, and it changed when I spoke to her." "Her tongue is certainly paralyzed, and she can move neither hand nor foot." "I do not wish her carried to the charity hospital, though doubtless the treatment is the same. Please take her to the Mercy Infirmary, and will you be so kind as to let me sit close to her in the ambulance?" Keenly the doctor scanned the convulsed face, where overmastering emotion defied control. "Your wife, you said? My friend, don't you think it time you laid aside your disguise? Priests are not--in this country--given to acknowledging their wives so publicly. It may be all right, but your marital claims and your clothes don't seem to fit." "I am not a Romanist. I belong to an Episcopal celibate Order, and my superior understands and directs my movements. If you knew everything you would pity me----" The surgeon took off his hat, bowed, and waved him to a seat in the ambulance.