"No words can tell you how deeply I sympathize with you in your sorrow. I hope, for both our sakes, that your belief may prove true, and Kathleen be restored to your heart."
Her sympathy pleased him, as she knew it would, and he answered, eagerly:
"You loved her. I know. How could any one live in the house with her and not be devoted to one so sweet and lovely?"
Alpine withdrew her hand and played nervously with her many rings.
"Yes. I was fond of Kathleen," she murmured. "You did well to come to me. You have all my sympathy, and oh! how I wish I could find her and restore her to you. Is there nothing I can do? I am rich, you know, and if you wish it, I will employ a detective to find Kathleen;" but even as she breathed the tender words, the wily girl knew that she would rather employ a detective to hunt her rival down to her death.
Ralph Chainey, blind mortal that he was, looked at her gratefully, without detecting the hollow ring in her voice.
"God bless you for your noble offer, Miss Belmont, but I can not accept it," he replied. "I have detectives already employed. I, too, am rich, and my whole fortune shall be devoted to finding her, if it costs that much. All that you can do is to write to me at once if you hear from our poor lost darling. I shall be moving from one city to another, but I will keep you informed of my whereabouts."
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Chainey, and I will write you if I have the least bit of news!" exclaimed Alpine, with sparkling eyes, for she began to see a prospect of getting up a correspondence with the great actor. She would write to him often, asking if he had any news, and he would be obliged, in common courtesy, to reply.
He rose to go, and Alpine poured out eloquently her sympathy for him and her sorrow for Kathleen.
"We both love her; it is a link between us," she said. "Try to think of me as a sister, and remember I shall often be thinking of you in your sorrow."