“It must have hurt him,” said Shirley; and he laughed at her tone that was meant to be severe.

“I certainly hope so; I most devoutly hope he felt it!  He was most tenderly solicitous for my health; and if he had really shot me there in the garden it would have had an ugly look.  Armitage, the false baron, would have been identified as a daring burglar, shot while trying to burglarize the Claiborne mansion!  But I wouldn’t take the Claiborne plate for anything, I assure you!”

“I suppose you didn’t think of us—­all of us, and the unpleasant consequences to my father and brother if something disagreeable happened here!”

There was real anxiety in her tone, and he saw that he was going too far with his light treatment of the affair.  His tone changed instantly.

“Please forgive me!  I would not cause embarrassment or annoyance to any member of your family for kingdoms.  I didn’t know I was being followed—­I had come here to see you.  That is the truth of it.”

“You mustn’t try to see me!  You mustn’t come here at all unless you come with the knowledge of my father.  And the very fact that your life is sought so persistently—­at most unusual times and in impossible places, leaves very much to explain.”

“I know that!  I realize all that!”

“Then you must not come!  You must leave instantly.”

She walked away toward the front door; but he followed, and at the door she turned to him again.  They were in the full glare of the door lamps, and she saw that his face was very earnest, and as he began to speak he flinched and shifted the cloak awkwardly.

“You have been hurt—­why did you not tell me that?”

“It is nothing—­the fellow had a knife, and he—­but it’s only a trifle in the shoulder.  I must be off!”

The lightning had several times leaped sharply out of the hills; the wind was threshing the garden foliage, and now the rain roared on the tin roof of the veranda.

As he spoke a carriage rolled into the grounds and came rapidly toward the porte-cochere.

“I’m off—­please believe in me—­a little.”

“You must not go if you are hurt—­and you can’t run away now—­my father and mother are at the door.”

There was an instant’s respite while the carriage drew up to the veranda steps.  She heard the stable-boy running out to help with the horses.

“You can’t go now; come in and wait.”

There was no time for debate.  She flung open the door and swept him past her with a gesture—­through the library and beyond, into a smaller room used by Judge Claiborne as an office.  Armitage sank down on a leather couch as Shirley flung the portieres together with a sharp rattle of the rod rings.

She walked toward the hall door as her father and mother entered from the veranda.

“All, Miss Claiborne!  Your father and mother picked me up and brought me in out of the rain.  Your Storm Valley is giving us a taste of its powers.”