The Black Robe

A rich young Englishman whose estate, Vange Abbey, was once Church property is worked on by a Jesuit who means to convert him and win the land back; the woman who marries him can see the whole design and can do very little to stop it. Collins builds a conspiracy thriller inside a drawing-room drama and gives both sides their reasons. Paintings of country houses, clerical chambers and candlelit chapels; the Gilded Library ornament is crucifix, biretta and a stained-glass rose.