Ill news travels fast. Slade and his wife brought the tragic tidings to Grimleigh that night, and by morning the whole town was in possession of a distorted version of the facts. The milkman reported his own particular rendering of the affair to Miss Arnott's servant, who in her turn informed her mistress. Miss Arnott, feeling that the minister should be notified, put on her hat and called on him. She was shown into the dining-room, and found Johnson making a hurried breakfast, preparatory to departing for Bethdagon. Carwell had sent a special messenger to bring him up. "I know all about it. Miss Arnott," he said, when the lady entered. "It is very terrible. But I am glad to say that there is every chance of Mr. Mayne's recovery." "I thought he was dying." "No. Brother Carwell's messenger informs me that Lee's knife pierced no vital part. The man will recover. Let us hope that he will repent of his sins, and lead a new life." "Amen to that," said Miss Arnott, softly; "and the gipsy?" "He is still at large. It will not be easy for the police to catch Pharaoh, The man knows the country as I know this room." "I hope they won't catch him," cried Miss Arnott, with a defiant look; "wicked as Lee has been, Mr. Mayne is worse. Pharaoh had great provocation to kill him. 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,' Mr. Johnson. If Mr. Mayne murdered this unhappy girl whom he made his wife, it is right that he should suffer." "'Vengeance is Mine,'" said Johnson, solemnly, "you know the text. Pharaoh had no right to take the law into his own hands." "Perhaps not. But Mr. Mayne robbed him of the woman he loved, and no doubt he lost his head for the moment. Love is capable of all things." "You are right," said the minister, bitterly, as he thought of his own sad romance. "God knows we are but weak reeds blown by the wind. But we do not know yet if Mayne is guilty of Zara's death. I have still to hear the true version from Farmer Carwell." "Let me know when you return," remarked Miss Arnott, rising; then, after a pause, she added, "And all these troubles have arisen from Bithiah coming to stay with you." "I am afraid so. Let us hope they will end with her going. Next week I celebrate the ceremony of her marriage with Finland, as they both leave Grimleigh in the _Dayspring_." "Will her departure break your heart?" asked Miss Arnott, sarcastically. Johnson reddened. "I once thought it would," he said in a low voice. "And don't you feel as you did?" "No, I do not. That folly is at an end. Before her supposed death she was all in all to me. Now I contemplate her marriage with Finland at least without distress."