"No, she has never come back from Europe, so we will go on to New York, as we planned, and have a jolly good time; but, mind, Lizette, not a word about the shark and the blood, or I'll cut off the end of your tongue!" and Jack wrenched himself free, and disappeared. Lizette wept with disappointment because she should not see her mistress yet. "But I'll spend a few hours in New York, then go back to Pirate Beach and see Mrs. Hill, and find out all about Miss Nita," she thought, as she threw herself on her bunk, and sobbed herself to sleep. When she awoke again she found herself a prisoner in a low den by the river-side in New York, guarded by a fiendish-looking old woman, who thrust some coarse food inside the door, and disappeared without answering a word to her imploring questions. Jack Dineheart was nowhere to be seen, but in a few days Lizette was horrified to find that his mother had taken the place of the mute attendant. "Meg Dineheart, what does this mean?" she demanded angrily, but with a jeering laugh Meg vanished, and she heard the key grate harshly in the lock of the door. "Oh, what is the mystery of this strange persecution?" wondered the half-maddened prisoner, forebodingly, but all her fears for the future did not approach the reality of the awful fate that hung suspended over her head ready to fall and destroy her very life. CHAPTER XXXII. ON TRIAL FOR HER LIFE. When the day of Nita's trial approached the popular verdict had adjudged her guilty. It was believed that if the jury cleared her it would only be to send her for life to an insane asylum. Azalea Courtney and her mother read the papers with deepest interest, they exulted in every harsh criticism aimed at Nita, and they hoped that she would get the severest sentence. "If she is spared to be Dorian's wife, I shall hate her even more bitterly than I do now," asserted Azalea vindictively. "I thought you had gotten over your passion for Dorian, now that you are going to make such a grand match," her mother returned uneasily. Azalea was lounging on a sofa, the picture of indolence. She raised herself on her elbow and looked into her mother's face with a spark of fire leaping into her large blue eyes. "Dorian Mountcastle is the only man I ever loved, or ever shall love," she answered, "I shall marry Sir George of course, but I shall love Dorian as long as I live. I thought that time when I threw him over that I should soon forget, but I was young, and did not realize the power of love. Fancy then how horribly I hate Nita, whom he loves so dearly." "Somehow I think it would have been more to our interest if we had taken her part and hidden our hatred in our own hearts," said Mrs. Courtney. "Soon we shall be turned out of doors penniless, with no claim on her pity or protection." "But, mama, you will get the ransom for that--thing," returned Azalea, growing pale at the memory of her fright. "I am not so sure of that. There are no answers to my letters."