His hand had slipped from her arm in the first shock of recognition. Now he hastily put it back and pressed it to see if it was real flesh and blood or only a phantom woman. He muttered, hoarsely: "Kathleen Carew, are you ghost or human?" Kathleen's dark-eyes laughed radiantly into his. "I am human, Mr. Chainey, as I think you ought to realize from the way you're pinching my arm," she returned, with pretty archness. All in a moment she had changed from a sad, persecuted young girl, begging her way in the dark street, to a very queen of love and happiness. Looking into his luminous brown eyes, all her sorrow seemed to flee away, and the sunlit sky of love seemed glowing over her head, instead of dark, wintery skies. Her archness, her smiles, and the warm, human touch of her wrist, recalled him from his ghostly fears, and he said, faintly, but eagerly: "I can hardly believe my senses, Kathleen. You--alive--after all these months, when I sorrowed for you dead! Where have you been?" Her face paled, and she looked apprehensively over her shoulder. "I--I--can not tell you here!" she faltered. "I might be missed and followed. If--if--you would only take me to the depot, and send me home to Boston to papa, I will be so grateful. I--I--think I have enough money to pay my way." Ralph Chainey signaled a passing cab, and lifted the young girl gently into it. "Drive slowly about the streets for an hour until further orders," he said to the driver, as he sprung in and took his seat by Kathleen. "Oh, what happiness this is to find you alive, Kathleen!" he exclaimed, searching for her little hand, and holding it warmly clasped in his. She nestled slightly toward him, and he thrilled with happiness at the confiding motion. "You will send me home to papa?" she repeated, sweetly. Then he said: "It will be several hours before the next train for Boston leaves, Kathleen, so you can tell me all about yourself while we ride about and beguile the time of waiting. Or, would you prefer to go to a hotel and rest, and have some refreshments?" "I am not hungry nor tired, and prefer to ride about with you this way," answered the girl, with naïve simplicity; and he drew a sigh of relief. He was young, but more worldly wise than Kathleen. He preferred not to take her to a hotel until she had some claim on him, to silence carping tongues. But first he must know the secret of her mysterious whereabouts ever since the night when he had kissed and wept over her beautiful dead face, and gone away on a mission that brooked no delay. But for a few minutes he was silent from sheer happiness. Alive, his beautiful Kathleen, whom he had adored in secret, but never told of his love! What happiness, when he and happiness had so long been strangers! Her tremulous voice broke the silence: "Do you understand it all--that I was in a trance that night when you bade me farewell and went away?"