Bandit Love

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?"