A husband, a wife, and the governess in the house — and then the divorce court, where English law of 1886 hands the child to whichever parent society decides is respectable. Collins invented the detective novel with The Moonstone and spent his last years in laudanum and two households; this late novel is a straight attack on the custody law, and the woman who has done nothing wrong is punished most efficiently of all. Fifty-seven plates, from Richard Redgrave and James Tissot among others, picture the domestic interiors, partings and homely scenes that this story of a broken household turns against itself.
