All the laughter died from her face and the joy in her heart. She made the sign of the cross, knelt down and prayed to Our Lady of Sorrows.
By this time the sky was completely leaden in hue and rain was pouring down.
Again the darkening room was lit up by a vivid forked flash and the crash of the thunder came instantly. The storm was immediately overhead. Peg closed her eyes, as she did when a child, while her lips moved in prayer.
Into the room through the window came a young man, his coat-collar turned up, rain pouring from his hat; inside his coat was a terrified-looking dog. The man came well into the room, turning down the collar of his coat; and shaking the moisture from his clothes, when he suddenly saw the kneeling figure of Peg. He looked down at her in surprise. She was intent on her prayers.
"Hello!" cried the young man. "Frightened, eh?"
Peg looked up and saw him staring down at her with a smile on his lips. Inside his coat was her precious little dog, trembling with fear. The terrier barked loudly when he saw his mistress. Peg sprang up, clutched "Michael" away from the stranger, just as another blinding flash played around the room followed by a deafening report.
Peg ran across to the door shouting: "Shut it out! Shut it out!" She stood there trembling, covering her eyes with one hand, with the other she held on to the overjoyed "MICHAEL," who was whining with glee at seeing her again.
The amazed and amused young man closed the windows and the curtains. Then he moved down toward Peg.
"Don't come near the dog, sir. Don't come near it!" She opened a door and found it led into a little reception room. She fastened "MICHAEL" with a piece of string to a chair in the room and came back to look again at the stranger, who had evidently rescued her dog from the storm. He was a tall, bronzed, athletic-looking, broad shouldered young man of about twenty-six, with a pleasant, genial, magnetic manner and a playful humour lurking in his eyes.
As Peg looked him all over she found that he was smiling down at her.