Yet Capella is neither a coward nor an ordinary villain.
For some ridiculous reason, I have a sneaking sympathy with him.

Had he stormed and blustered when I pitched into him to-day I would have thought less of him.

And his wife! What mysterious workings of Fate brought those two together and then disunited them?
They become fascinated one with the other whilst the brother's corpse is still palpitating beneath that terrible stroke.

They get married, with not unreasonable haste, but no sooner do they reach Beechcroft, a house of evil import if ever bricks and mortar had such a character, than they are driven asunder by some malign influence.
"And now, after eighteen months, I am asked to take up the tangled clues, if such may be said to exist.

It is a difficult, perhaps an impossible, undertaking.