gth and composure.

"Stand back!" she was saying as he approached. "How can he come to while
you are shutting out the air? Some one go quickly and fetch a door or a
litter. You go, and you."

She indicated two or three more respectable-looking men, and they at
once obeyed her. She looked relieved to see Donovan.

"Won't you go inside and speak to the people?" she said. "I have sent
for a doctor. If some one doesn't go soon, they will come out, and then
there might be a riot. Tell them if they have any feeling for my father
to separate quietly. Don't let them all out upon these people; there is
sure to be fighting if they meet."

Donovan could not bear to leave her in such a position, but just then a
doctor came up, and the police began to drive back the crowd; and since
the people were rather awed by what had happened, they dispersed meekly
enough. Donovan went into the Town Hall then, and gradually learned what
had taken place. It seemed that soon after the beginning of Raeburn's
lecture, a large crowd had gathered outside, headed by a man
named Drosser, a street preacher, well-known in Ashborough and the
neighborhood. This crowd had stormed the doors of the hall and had
created such an uproar that it was impossible to proceed with the
lecture. The doors had been quite unequal to the immense pressure from
without, and Raeburn, foreseeing that they would give way and knowing
that, if the insurgents met his audience, there would be serious risk to
the lives of many, had insisted on trying to dismiss the crowd without,
or, at any rate, to secure some sort of order. Several had offered to go
with him, but he had begged the audience to keep still and had gone out
alone the crowd being so astonished by this unexpected move that they
fell back for a moment before him. Apparently his plan would have
succeeded very well had it not been for Drosser's deliberate assault. He
had gained a hearing from the people and would probably have dispersed
them had he not been borne down by brute force.

It was no easy task to tell the audience what had happened; but Donovan
was popular and greatly respected and, thanks to his tact, their wrath,
though very great, was restrained. In fact, Raeburn was so well known
to disapprove of any sort of violence that Donovan's appeal to them
to preserve order for his sake met with a deep, suppressed murmur of
assent. When all was safe he hurried back to the hotel where they were
glad enough of his