$re = '/(^|[^"])(Level\s+\d+)(?!["\d])/';
$str = '"Level 3 protected": Level 4 here and "another Level 5"';
$subst = "$1\"$2\"";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php