She could not understand the apathy which seemed to have come over the
English officer who so lately had thirsted for the young commander's
blood, and she went away from him amazed and dejected. In vain, thus
far, had her attempts resulted as to sacrificing him whom she so
bitterly despised. She had trusted to others thus far--this she said to
herself, as she mused at the fruitless attempts she had been engaged
in--now she would trust to herself. But how to do it she hardly knew.
When he was under her father's roof, and she unsuspected of hostility to
him, it would have been an easy matter, with her knowledge of poisons,
to have sacrificed his life; but now it was not so very easy for her to
find an opportunity for any sort of approach to him. But this seemed her
last and only resource of vengeance, and she cared to live only to
consummate it.

Actually afraid to bring his brother again to trial, for fear of a
personal exposure, Captain Robert Bramble was now in a quandary; he was
looked to by the court for a conclusion of the suit he had brought, and
was now so situated that he found it necessary to screen that brother
whom he so bitterly disliked, from the cognizance of the authorities.
Indeed, he became nervous lest the exposure should become public in
spite of his efforts at concealing the singular facts. All this, of
course, tended to the safety of his brother Charles, who had rightly
anticipated this state of affairs in relation to the part that Robert
must needs enact; he therefore felt perfectly safe in awaiting an
opportunity for shipment to England in the first vessel bound thither,
and it was at once agreed between Mrs. Huntington, Helen and himself,
that they would go together. The period of the return of Captain
Bramble's ship to England was fast approaching, and passage had been
offered to Helen and her mother therein; but Helen had promptly declined
it, and induced her mother to do so also, though it required some