Ruth murmured.

"Let me get you something," begged Alice. "Some smelling salts--some
ammonia--shall I call any one--the doctor----?"

"No, I--I'll be all right presently," said Estelle in a broken voice.
"Just let me alone a little while--I mean stay with me--talk to me--tell
me something. I want to get control of my nerves."

Ruth did not seem to know what to say, but Alice pulled a small bottle
from her pocket, and held it under Estelle's nose.

"It's the loveliest new scent," she said. "I bought a sample in town."

Estelle burst into a laugh, rather a hysterical laugh, it is true, but a
laugh nevertheless. It showed that the strain and tension were relaxing
to some extent.

"Isn't it sweet?" Alice asked.

"It is, dear. Let me smell it again. It makes me feel better," and
Estelle breathed in deep of the odorous scent.

"How silly I was to give way like that," she went on. "But I simply
couldn't help it. This has been going on for so long, and it got so I
couldn't stand it another minute. How would you like it not to know who
you are?"

"Not very much, I'm afraid," said Ruth, softly.

"That, in a way, is why it has been such a relief to be in the moving
pictures," Estelle went on. "I could be so many different characters,
and, at times, I thought perhaps, by chance, I might be cast for the
very part I have lost--cast for my real self, as it were."

"You must have had a hard time," said Alice.

"I haven't told you half the story yet," Estelle went on. "Would you
like to hear the rest?"

"Indeed we would!" exclaimed Ruth. "Not from any idle curiosity, but
because we want to help you."

"And I do need some one to help me," murmured Estelle. "I am all alone
in the world."

"You must have relatives somewhere!" insisted Alice.

"None that I ever heard of. But then, who knows what might have happened
in the life that is a blank to me--in the life that lies beyond that
impenetrable wall of the past?

"But I mustn't get hysterical again. Just let me think for a moment, so
I may tell you my story clearly. I shall be all right in a moment or
two."

"Let me make you a cup of tea," proposed Ruth. "I'll make some for all
of us," and presently the little kettle was steaming over the spirit
lamp, and the girls were sipping the fragrant beverage.

"Thank you. That was good!" murmured Estelle. "I feel better now. I'll
tell the rest of my miserable story to you."

"Don't make it too miserable," and Alice tried t