The Mystery of Crocksands by Fred M. White

So this pallid, hunted woman with the slumbering eyes and the suggestion of the panther half-untamed despite the lash was the wife of Christopher Wrath. Something vile and sinister was going on here, and in some vague, intangible way, Ellen felt that it was not remotely connected with her own case. And yet it seemed almost impossible to link Crocksands Abbey, with its serene and ancient beauty and its old-world flavour, with vulgar crime.

She was thinking much the same as she sat presently at luncheon in one of the smaller dining-rooms looking out over the sea through a bewildering picture of sweeping woodland and uplifting crag, beyond the latticed windows, where in red and gold and pallid blue the arms of the ancient race blazed and twinkled. It was all exactly as Ellen had known it in the bygone days, when she had been so happy there; and the knowledge that this beloved place should have been all hers caused her to stir uneasily. She looked from Wrath, seated there, big and overpowering, and in one of his very best moods, to the silent woman at the other end of the table with that discoloured bruise on her white face. Stone, rather pale and obviously sulky, was drinking a great deal more than he ate, and Wrath was inclined to rally him on the point. Then one of the well-trained London servants brought in the midday post, which a groom had fetched from Lyndale, and Wrath turned to his correspondence. He read one letter with a lowering brow and an ominous frown on his face. He threw the letter across the table to Stone.