"Bid me stay, beloved," he whispered. "Give me the love for which my whole being is craving. Bid me stay."
CHAPTER XIV
Drowsily, Myra opened her eyes, awakened by the clatter made by Madre Dolores as she set down a tray on which was a breakfast of coffee and rolls by her bedside.
"Buenos dias, señorita," said Dolores, as Myra, unable to realise for a few moments where she was, blinked at her sleepily and dazedly.
"Buenos dias," repeated Myra mechanically. "Let me see, that is
Spanish for 'good morning,'" she added to herself, stretching
luxuriously and yawning. "I wonder where the maid is who speaks
English?"
And then the mists of sleep lifted suddenly as she sat up in bed and she remembered everything vividly. Dolores, eyeing her curiously, wondered why the English señorita blushed furiously, wondered what she could have said to cause the fair señorita such obvious embarrassment.
"Possibly it is not anything I have said which caused her to blush," reflected the old woman. "Maybe she is thinking of last night, remembering that I saw the master carrying her to bed, or perhaps she is thinking of something that happened afterwards."
Dolores was not so wide of the mark. It was recollection of the events of the preceding night that had brought the burning blush to Myra's cheeks, and the thought of the interpretation the old woman might have put on what she had seen and heard.
"Just as well, perhaps, that she does not understand English, as she was probably eavesdropping all the time," thought Myra.
She was amazed that she should have been able to sleep soundly after her emotional ordeal, until she remembered that when at last Don Carlos had desisted in his attempt to make her surrender herself voluntarily and had left her, Madre Dolores had reappeared and insisted upon her drinking something out of a glass. The "something" was a sweet and pungent cordial, which probably contained some soporific drug.