"WHAT CAN WE DO?"
"You poor dear!" cried Alice, and she knelt down on the floor beside
Estelle and put her arms about the weeping girl. Ruth, too, with an
expression of sympathy, stroked the bowed head.
"We want so much to help you," 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 to make her laugh a gay
one.
"I won't--not any more so than I can help. I think it will do me good to
let you share the mystery with me."
"Then it is a mystery?" asked Ruth.
"Somewhat, yes. You may think it strange, but I can not think back more
than three years--four at the most. I am not at all certain of the time.
But go back as far as I can, all I remember is that I was on a large
steamer."
"On the ocean?" asked Alice.
"No, on the Great Lakes. I was going to Cleveland, which I learned when
I asked one of the officers."
"And didn't you know where you were going before you asked?" Ruth
questioned.
"I hadn't the least idea, my dear. I might just as well have been going
to Europe. In fact, when I first looked out and saw the water, I thought
I was on the ocean."
"But where did you come from, what were you doing there, where were your
people?" cried Ruth.
"That's it, my dear. Where were they? I didn't know. No one knew. All I
could grasp was the fact that I was there on the boat."
"Alone?"
"Yes, all alone."
"But who bought your ticket--who engaged your stateroom?" questioned
Ruth.
"That is the queer part of it. I did it myself. When I first became
conscious that I was in a strange place I was so shocked that I wanted
to scream--to cry out--to ask all sorts of questions. Then I realized if
I did that I might be taken for an insane person and be locked up. So I
just shut myself in my stateroom and did some thinking.
"The first thing I wanted to know was how I got on the steamer, but how
to find that out without asking questions that the steamship people
would think peculiar, was a puzzle to me. Finally, I decided to pretend
to want to change my room, and when I went to the purser I asked him if
that was the only room to be had.
"'Why no, Miss,' he said, 'but when you came on board and I told you
what rooms I had, you insisted on taking that one.' That was enough for
me. I realized then that I had come on board alone, and of my own
volition, though I had not any recollection of having done so, and I
knew no more of where I came from than you do now."
"How very strange!" murmured Alice. "And what did you do?"
"Well, I pretended that I had been tired and had not made a wise choice
of a room, and asked the purser to give me another.
"'I thought, when you picked it out, you wouldn't like that one,' he
said to me, 'but you looked like a young lady who was used to having her
own way, so I did not interfere.'
"That was another bit of information. Evidently, I looked prosperous, a
fact that was borne out when I examined my purse. I had a considerable
sum in it, and the large valise I found in my room was filled with
expensive clothes and fittings. Yet where I had obtained it or my money
or my clothes I could not tell for the life of me. All I knew was that
I was there on board the ship."
"And did you change your stateroom?" asked Ruth.
"Yes; the purser gave me another one. And then I sat down and tried to
puzzle it out. Why was I going to Cleveland? I knew no one there, and
yet I had bought a ticket to that port--or some one had bought it for
me."
"Did that occur to you?" asked Alice. "That some one might have had an
object in getting you out of the way."
"Well, if they had, they took a very public and expensive method of
doing it," Estelle said. "I was on one of the best boats on Lake Erie,
and I had plenty of money."
"Did you find in what name your room was taken?" asked Ruth. "That might
have given you a clue."
"The name given was Estelle Brown," was the answer. "I gave that name
myself, for I recognized my handwriting on the envelope in which I
sealed some of my jewelry before handing it to the purser to put in his
safe. Estelle Brown was the name I gave."
"And was it yours?" asked Alice.
"I haven't any reason to believe that it was not. In fact, as I looked
back then, and as I look back now, the name Estelle Brown seems to be
my very own--it is associated closely with me. So I'm sure I'm Estelle
Brown--that is the only part I am sure about."
"But what did you do?" asked Ruth. "Didn't you make some inquiries?"
"I did; as soon as I reached Cleveland. At first I hoped that my memory
would come back to me when I reached that place. I thought I might
recognize some of the buildings. In fact, I hoped it would prove to be
my home, from which I had, perhaps, wandered in a fit of illness.
"But it was of no help to me. I might just as well have been in San
Francisco or New York for all that the place was familiar to me. So I
gave that up. Then I began to look over the papers to see if any Estelle
Brown was missing. But there was nothing to that effect in the news
columns. All the while I was getting more and more worried.
"I went to a good hotel in Cleveland and stayed two or three days. Then
I happened to think that perhaps my clothes might offer some clue. I
examined them all carefully, and the only thing I found was the name of
a Boston firm on a toilet set. At once it flashed on me that I belonged
in Boston. I seemed to have a dim recollection of a big monument in the
midst of a green park, of narrow, crooked streets and historical
buildings.
"Then, in a flash it came to me--I did belong in Boston. How I had come
from there I could not guess, but I was sure I lived there. So I bought
a ticket for there and went as fast as the train could take me.
"But my hopes were dashed. Even the sight of Bunker Hill monument did
not bring the elusive memory, nor did viewing the other places of
historic interest. Yet, somewhere in the back of my brain, I was sure I
had been in that city before. I went to the place where my toilet set
was bought, but the man had sold out and the new owner could give me no
information.
"I did not know what to do. My money was running low, and I had not a
friend to whom to turn. I happened to go in to see some moving pictures,
and the idea came to me that perhaps I could act. I had rather a good
face, so some one had hinted."
"You do photograph beautifully," said Alice.
"That's what one of the managers in Boston told me when I applied to
him," said Estelle. "He gave me a small part, and then I learned that
New York was really the place to go to get in the movies, so I came on,
with a letter to a manager from the Boston firm.
"It must have been my face that got me my first engagement, for now I
know I couldn't act. But, somehow or other, I made good, and then I got
this engagement with Mr. Pertell.
"And that is my story. You can see what a strange one it is--for me not
to know who I am. I'm almost ashamed to admit it, and that is why I have
been avoiding all references to my past. But now I have told you, what
do you think?"
"I think it's just terrible!" cried Alice. "The idea! Not to know who
you are."
"The question is," said Ruth, "what can we do to help you? This must not
be allowed to go any further. Valuable time is being lost. We want to
help you, Estelle. What can we do? We must try to find out who you are."
"Yes, but how can you?" asked the strange girl.