"His mistress!" Lady Fermanagh was white to the lips as she repeated the words. "You mean that he——?"
The hot colour stained Myra's pale face as she met her aunt's eyes, and nodded her red-gold head in shamed assent.
"Myra, you are ruined!" Lady Fermanagh almost wailed, wringing her be-ringed hands. "What madness possessed you to offer to marry the brigand?"
"He taunted me—and Tony failed me," Myra answered, oddly reluctant to explain everything. "I wish I were dead."
"Does Don Carlos know?" asked her aunt, and again Myra flushed as she nodded assent.
"Yes, he alone knows, Aunt," she said, "and he alone knows whether the marriage service was a mockery or not."
Lady Fermanagh, still wringing her hands, rose and paced agitatedly up and down the room, her nimble brain busy trying to think of some way of saving the situation.
"I will see Don Carlos, Myra, beg him to keep your secret, beg him to assert that the so-called marriage was a farce and a mockery," she announced suddenly, after a long pause. "He is a chivalrous gentleman, and I know he will lie if necessary, to save your honour…. Why do you sneer, child? … Don't you realise that everything depends on Don Carlos, and how you behave towards Tony?"
"I have nothing but contempt for Tony now. I despise him."
"Don't be a little fool," snapped Lady Fermanagh. "Your only hope of saving yourself is to forgive Tony for his cowardice and marry him. He will be grateful to you all his life. Don Carlos can tell him that the marriage ceremony was only a farce, and that he arranged with the bandit for your liberation immediately afterwards, or else explain that he helped you to escape. How did you escape, by the way? You have not told me. Did Don Carlos help?"