Myra went to bed, but it was a long time before she could compose
herself to woo sleep, so full was her mind of disturbing thoughts, so
many problems did she find herself called on to solve.
"Does he love me?" That was the question that she put to herself time
and again, and could not answer. "Do I love him?" was another. And at
heart she knew that if she were certain that the answer to the first
question was in the affirmative, she could answer the second in a like
manner.
"What will it profit me if I denounce him?" she soliloquised. "He says
he is at my mercy, but he can claim me, and boast that I offered to
marry him, even if I do revenge myself by denouncing him. Always he
seems to have the advantage of me. To save my 'honour' now, and
satisfy Aunt Clarissa, I shall either have to humble myself to ask him
to marry me publicly, or else forgive Tony. Either course is
repugnant."
She fell asleep at last, but was wrestling with her problem even in her
jumbled dreams. She woke with a start, and with the impression strong
upon her that someone or something had touched her face and her breast.
Scared, she groped for the electric switch and flashed on the light
above the bed, and as she did so she remembered having awakened months
previously at Auchinleven just in the same sort of fright, to find Don
Carlos's note on her pillow.
Some odd instinct or intuition told her that history had repeated
itself, and it came hardly as a surprise to find a half-sheet of
notepaper tucked into her nightdress close to her heart. With fingers
that trembled slightly, Myra unfolded the note and read: "Give me your heart and love, my wife, and I will devote my life to
you. If you have no love, show no mercy."
Myra read the words again and again, sorely puzzled to decide what
exactly they meant, wondering, incidentally, why Don Carlos had not
awakened her to whisper what he had to say instead of leaving a note on
her breast.
"Is he ashamed or afraid?" she asked herself--and could not answer her
own question, nor a score of other questions which she put to herself
as she tossed about restlessly for the remainder of the night, unable
to sleep.
Her aunt, in dressing-gown and slippers, came to her room while she was
sipping her early morning cup of tea.
"I hope you slept well, Myra dear, and are feeling better," she said.
"I have hardly slept at all, and feel a wreck. Have you made up your
mind what to do?"