"I wonder what their names were?" he mused, curiously. "The blonde I did not quite like. There was something theatrical and made-up about her. She did not in the least resemble the fainting one, so they could not be sisters."
Still musing on his little adventure, he retired. Sleep came to him, made restless by uncanny dreams.
It seemed to the young man that he was standing on the verge of a precipice, looking down into a dark gulf where a turbulent river rushed along in foam and fury. Struggling in the gloomy waves was the young girl he had carried fainting to her carriage, and her white face was upturned to him; her great, piteous dark eyes were fixed on his with unutterable reproach. Tossing her white arms up toward him, she cried, bitterly:
"You helped that wicked woman to destroy me!"
Then she sunk beneath the waves, and they closed forever over her white face and shining hair.
Sammy Hall awoke in anguish, his forehead beaded with perspiration.
"Oh, what a strange, weird dream! How vivid it is still in my mind! What does it mean? Is it a warning? That can not be, however, for I was doing her a kindness, not an injury, and my heart ached with sympathy for her sorrow."
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."