"Zara Lovell!" stammered Slade, retreating a step and looking anything but comfortable. "What do you know of her, Mr. Johnson?"
"Only so much as I learned from Lee."
"Lee! Pharaoh Lee, the gipsy? Have you seen him?"
"I was speaking with him a quarter of an hour before I met you, Slade. He is looking for Zara."
"Is she lost, then?"
"It would seem so. Pharaoh was to have married her; but she told him that she was already married to some one in this neighbourhood. Then she ran away from the gipsy camp. Thinking she came on here to her husband--whoever he is--Lee followed, and he is now looking for her. Slade," said Johnson, gravely, "the gipsy declared that either you or Mr. Mayne must be the husband of this girl."
Slade changed from red to white, and evaded the minister's eye. "I knew Zara well enough a year ago," he said, doggedly, "and we had a liking for one another; but as to marriage, that never came into my mind. I have a wife now--the only one I ever had--and if she hears this tale, Lord knows what she'll do. She's never done talking of Zara as it is."
"Well, and Mr. Mayne?"
"Oh, he liked Zara too; but I don't think he intended to marry her. Why, he's set on marryin' Miss Carwell."
"Who else is there, that you know the girl was intimate with?"