This, however, by the way.

What I am clumsily trying to explain is that if I am to make this story intelligible I must start from the darkness where its roots lie hidden.

And that darkness is the black depths of the canal by the lock gates where Althea Fenimore's body was found.
It was high June, in leafy England, in a world at peace.

Can one picture it?
With such a wrench of memory does one recall scenes of tender childhood.

In the shelter of a stately house lived Althea Fenimore.