CHAPTER XVII.
A GENTLEMAN IN HIDING Oh, sweetly fall the April days! My love was made of frost and light, Of light to warm and frost to blight The sweet, strange April of her ways.
Eyes like a dream of changing skies, And every frown and blush I prize.
With cloud and flush the spring comes in, With frown and blush maids' loves begin; For love is rare like April days.
-- L.

Frank Tooker.
Mrs.Claiborne excused herself shortly, and Shirley, her father and the Ambassador talked to the accompaniment of the shower that drove in great sheets against the house.

Shirley was wholly uncomfortable over the turn of affairs.

The Ambassador would not leave until the storm abated, and meanwhile Armitage must remain where he was.

If by any chance he should be discovered in the house no ordinary excuses would explain away his presence, and as she pondered the matter, it was Armitage's plight--his injuries and the dangers that beset him--that was uppermost in her mind.
The embarrassment that lay in the affair for herself if Armitage should be found concealed in the house troubled her little.