Rupert Godwin - Mary Elizabeth Braddon

A respected country banker lives beyond his means in a rambling Tudor hall, its northern wing sealed up and whispered to be haunted. When a merchant captain, bound for the East on a perilous voyage, entrusts his life's savings to this pillar of the community before sailing, no one imagines what shape the banker's gratitude will take.

Word arrives that the ship has gone down with all hands. The grieving widow calls at the bank to claim the deposit-and is told, with smooth regret, that no such sum was ever received. The only witness is dust, and the only proof lies in an iron safe behind a locked door.

Cast out into poverty, the captain's beautiful daughter takes to the London stage, where she attracts the notice of a dissolute marquis and the loyal devotion of a young artist. Meanwhile, a ragged stranger walks the lanes near Wilmingdon Hall-watching, waiting, and carrying a secret that could drag a respectable name down into the vaults beneath the house.