"Oh, I'm sure that belongs to me. It seems a very part of myself." "Did you tell any of this to Mr. Pertell or to the other moving picture managers?" asked Alice. "No. You are the first persons to whom I have told my secret," Estelle said. "I was afraid if I mentioned it they might make it public for advertising purposes, you know. They might make public the fact that a young actress was looking for herself and her parents. I never could bear that!" "But you want to find your folks, don't you?" asked Alice. "That's the queer part of it," Estelle replied. "I seem never to have had any relatives. The way I feel about it now, I would never know that I had had a father or a mother. I seem to have just 'growed,' the way poor Topsy did in Uncle Tom's Cabin. That is another strange part of my present existence. I seem to be in a world by myself, and, as far as I can tell, I have always been there." "What about Lieutenant Varley?" inquired Alice. "Lieutenant Varley?" and Estelle's voice showed that she was puzzled. "The young officer who said he met you in Portland." "Oh, yes. I had forgotten. Well, I have absolutely no recollection of that, and I'm sure I would remember if I had been in the West. I'm certain I never was there." "And yet if you weren't in the West how did you learn to ride so well?" Ruth queried. "That's another part of the puzzle, my dear. Riding seems to come as natural to me as breathing. I don't seem ever to have learned it any more than I learned how to dance. I seem always to have known how." "There's only one way to account for that," Alice said. "How?" "From the fact that you must have started to learn to ride and to dance when you were very young--a mere child." "I suppose that would account for it. And yet, I can't remember ever being a child. I don't recall having played with dolls or having made mud pies. For me my existence begins about three or four years back, and goes on from there, mostly in moving pictures." "It is a queer case," commented Ruth. "I don't know what to do to help you. Perhaps it would be a good thing to speak to Mr. Pertell about it. Often when children have been kidnapped, you know, their pictures are flashed on the screen in hundreds of cities, and sometimes persons in the audiences recognize them. That might be done with you, Estelle." "No, I wouldn't dream of doing that. Perhaps something may turn up some day that will tell me who I really am. And perhaps I shall be sorry for having learned." "No, you will not!" declared Alice. "You come of good people--one can easily tell that." "Thank you, dear. And now I have inflicted enough of my troubles on you. Let's talk about something pleasant." "You haven't burdened us with your troubles, Estelle dear," insisted Ruth. "It is a strange story, and we are interested in the outcome." "Indeed we are," said Alice. "We want very much to help you."