Page:Barbour--Peggy in the rain.djvu/253

 Somewhere in the confusion the reporter lost them. At the end of the block a cabman, pausing for a minute to watch the scene, found himself suddenly supplied with a fare.

"Drive downtown; anywhere for now; I'll tell you later," said Gordon as he helped Peggy into the little musty coupé and followed her.

The cabby snapped his whip and the roar of the engines lessened as the tired horse drew them northward. For a block or two no words were uttered in the cab. Peggy lay in his arms, silent. Now and then a little tremor passed through her. Gordon, his mind still in a state of chaos and his head and lungs aching from the smoke, pressed his face to the brown hair and watched the lights file slowly past the window. The incidents of the last quarter of an hour had taken on the quality of a dream. Presently he muttered wonderingly:

"Peggy, Peggy-in-the-Rain, is it really you?"

She answered with a sigh and a pressure of the hand in his.

"I don't understand it yet," he went on after a moment. "What were you doing in that house?"

"I lived there—ever since I came here."