No blackmailing had ever been practised; the plumber and his wife were content with what they received, (Arabella felt a satisfaction in remembering that of her own accord she had asked her husband to do something for them, when she might very well have disregarded them altogether,) and the two brothers, who were supposed to have left England, had never been heard of again.

The failure to discover anyone named Tomalin whom she could regard as of her own blood was now a disappointment to Lady Ogram; sometimes she even fretted about it.

Mr.
Kerchever had it in charge to renew the inquiry, to use every possible means, and spare no outlay.

The old woman yearned for kinsfolk, as the younger sometimes do for offspring of their own.
The engagement of Constance Bride as resident secretary resulted no doubt from this craving in the old lady's mind for human affection.
Perhaps she felt that she had behaved with less than justice to the girl's father; moreover, Constance as a little child had greatly won her liking, and in the young woman she perceived a capability, an independence, which strongly appealed to her.

Thus far they had got on very well together, and Lady Ogram began to think that she had found in Constance what she had long been looking for--one of her own sex equal to the burden of a great responsibility and actuated by motives pure enough to make her worthy of a high privilege.
Had her girlhood fallen into brutal hands, Arabella's native savagery would doubtless have developed strange excesses in the life of a social outlaw.