“Perhaps,” said a voice close by him, “I can throw some light on the subject.”
All eyes were turned as the beautiful gypsy girl stepped from behind the folds of the curtain. She advanced toward old Meg, and passing her hand over her own purple black hair, she said:
“Meg, would you know Zula if you were to see her?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Then I will tell you where to go. You will tire in this position,” she said, assisting Meg to rise. “Take this chair while I, too, tell a story.”
Old Meg took the chair, but kept her eyes fixed on Zula’s face.
“Perhaps I have more for which to ask forgiveness than any other one present. Years ago,” said Zula, “I lived with a band of gypsies. I may have been a bad child, but I hardly think I deserved the cruel punishment which I received at the hands of my mother and brother.”
Crisp dropped his head upon his breast.
“So often was I beaten that I grew to hate the man who called himself my brother, and I swore to have revenge, and at one time I should, no doubt, have died under the lash had it not been for the interference of a kind hearted gentleman, who happened to be hunting in the woods. The night before my escape from my persecutors I heard them talking when they thought I was asleep. The gentleman had given me his address on a card, and they, overhearing a portion of our conversation, as they entered the tent, searched me for it. I could not exactly understand, at the time, what their intentions were, but I learned enough to know that they meant to harm him in some way, but fortunately I had returned the card to the gentleman, telling him that I could remember.”