"I have heard all of your story," she continued, "and I feel so sorry for you! I sent for you to tell you if there is any way that I can aid you in searching for your sister, I shall be only too happy to do so."
"The young girl you speak of is not my sister," corrected Margaret; "but I love her quite as dearly as though she were."
"Not your sister?" repeated Rosamond.
"No," was the answer; "but I love her quite as much as though she were."
"Tell me about her."
Margaret leaned forward, thoughtful for a moment, looking with dreamy eyes into the fire.
"I have very little to tell," she said. "I have not known the young girl as long as people imagine. Her uncle saved me from a wrecked steamboat, and she nursed me back to health and strength. Who I am or what I was before that accident, I can not remember; everything seems a blank to me. There are whole days even now when the darkness of death creeps over my mind, and I do not realize what is taking place about me. This sweet, young girl has been my faithful friend, even after her uncle died, sharing her every penny with me. Now she is lost to me forever. She went away, and I can not trace her. There is another feeling which sometimes steals over me," murmured Margaret, "a thought which is cruel, and which I can not shake off, that sometimes impresses me strangely, that somehow we have met in some other world, and that she was my enemy."
"What a strange notion!" said Rosamond.
"Oh, that thought has grieved me so!" continued Margaret, in a low, sad voice.
"I hear that she left you to go on the stage," said Rosamond.