Cullen had been so fortunate as to find a doctor driving past the gate, and both now appeared on the scene, much to Letty’s joy, for she was a tender-hearted girl, despite her faults of cupidity and deceitfulness. The physician made a hasty examination, and discovered that Annette’s wound was not serious, after all. The bullet had been diverted from its course by her stays, and had inflicted a painful but not dangerous wound. He extracted it very easily just before she groaned and recovered consciousness, staring in alarm at the strange faces bending over her as she lay on the ground. “There, you will do nicely now,” said the kind old doctor, who had already stanched the flow of blood, and he added: “My coupé is at the gate, and I will just take you home to your mother before she gets frightened to death with some awful report that you are murdered.” The girl’s eyes dilated in anguish, for at that moment everything returned to her mind, and she remembered that the man she loved more than life--her handsome, blue-eyed Ray--had aimed a murderous bullet at her true heart. She almost wished that she had died, so cruel was the pain of knowing that he was unworthy. Doctor Bowers saw the gleam of apprehension in her dark eyes, and asked quickly: “Miss Annette, do you know who gave you this wound?” She was silent a moment, then faltered: “How should I know? It--it--must have been a stray shot, for--for--I was alone the moment this girl, here, left me, and--then--suddenly I heard the sharp report of a pistol. The bullet pierced my breast, and--I fell to the ground, and knew no more.” Doctor Bowers glanced at Letty Green, who answered: “It must be true what she says, for I was here talking to her alone, and it was barely three minutes later that I heard the pistol as I was coming up the steps, and I thought she had committed suicide; so we ran here quick as lightning, but we saw and heard no intruder.” “It must have been a stray shot,” corroborated Cullen, strong in his conviction that no one could deliberately harm such a pretty young thing. The old doctor said no more; but in his heart he did not accept the theory of the stray shot. Something in Annette’s eyes, so startled, so grieved, like a wounded fawn’s, when he questioned her, had half betrayed to him the secret she was loyally guarding. “The girl is shielding some one--a jealous lover, maybe--but, after the manner of these self-immolating women, she will never betray her secret,” he thought testily, as he and Cullen carried her gently to the coupé, so that she could be removed to her home. Poor little Annette, who had started forth so gayly scarce an hour ago, how different was her home-coming, and what a shock the mother’s heart received when they brought her pale darling in with the gory bloodstains defacing her new silk gown! “Who has done this dreadful thing?” her mother cried; and Doctor Bowers could only tell her what he had heard: “It was a stray shot.”