He could think of nothing else next day, and at noon, when a heavy storm came up and kept customers from crowding into Haines & Co.'s great store, he told the bright, pretty young salesladies about it, dream and all. They listened to him with the liveliest interest; their eyes grew dim with pity for the beautiful young girl whose heart had broken for the death of her lover. "But it was so strange for her to reproach me in that dream!" he said, in a troubled voice--"so strange! Because, you see, I was only kind to her, and did nothing wrong." "Mr. Hall, I have a theory to explain your dream," cried Tessie Mays, a romantic young girl; and every one turned to her with interest as she went on: "The blonde was a bad, wicked creature who frightened that pretty, innocent young thing into a faint, and then carried her off to some wretched fate--'the spider and the fly,' you know." "It is very likely, indeed!" chorused all those romantic young girls, and Sammy Hall's heart sunk like a stone in his breast. He brooded over that night's adventure, and in his sleep that strange dream kept recurring. He feared that Tessie Mays was right. The blonde woman was a wicked creature who had made him a tool to help her in her nefarious plans. Two days later, as he was going along Ninth Street to dinner, he came suddenly face to face with the blonde, made up carefully and gaudily attired. He stopped in front of her and stammered: "Oh! ah! miss--madame--excuse me; but how is that unhappy young girl?" "Why, you must be crazy! I don't know you. I don't know what you mean. Get out of my way!" She pushed him roughly aside, and had disappeared before he recovered from his surprise. CHAPTER XX. KATHLEEN MAKES A STARTLING DISCOVERY. "Who that feels what Love is here-- All its falsehood, all its pain-- Would, for even Elysium's sphere, Risk the fatal dream again?" When Kathleen Carew recovered consciousness she found herself on a bed in a shabby garret bed-room, with the eyes of the blonde beauty looking into hers. "So you are come to at last? I began to think you were dead, child. Here! smell this, and you'll soon be better," she exclaimed, vivaciously, as she held a bottle of camphor under Kathleen's nose. Kathleen pushed it away like a petulant child. "What am I doing here?" she sobbed, in a frightened voice. "This is my home, you know. I offered to bring you here to save you from Ralph Chainey, that wicked actor. Oh, my! what a scene there was after you fainted. He came back, and I can tell you, he was frightened at finding _me_ there. I told him he must go away, that I had told you all, and you hated him. He tried to brazen it all out at first, but presently he was humble enough, and I made him carry you out and put you in my carriage. Then he went away, vowing he would get you into his power some day." Kathleen shuddered from head to foot, and cried, appealingly: