Page:Barbour--Peggy in the rain.djvu/17

 remained on the festooning vines to fill the breathless air with their languorous perfume. A heavier rumble of thunder broke the silence, and as it died away in diminishing echoes, there came the soft thud of hoofs on the path behind him. He stepped aside and turned to look. A big rangy sorrel swept into sight at a gallop, and Gordon made ready to lift his hat to the rider, a girl in a linen habit who was bending low in the saddle as she raced against the storm. Gordon met for an instant the half-startled glance from a pair of dark eyes, and then horse and rider were past him and out of sight around the next turn.

He went on, mildly curious about the girl. There had been only time for a glance, but the glance had shown him a face quite unknown to him; and Gordon thought he knew, by sight at least, most of the feminine faces of Aiken's winter colony. Certainly the girl might be staying at the big hotel on the outskirts of town, but that didn't explain her mount. The big sorrel with his three white stockings was not a livery horse, of that he was certain. Moreover, he was almost equally certain that he had seen the horse before. Gordon's memory for horses was more