The Black Robe by Wilkie Collins

A rich young widower with a Catholic estate is worked on by a Jesuit who intends the property for the Church; the woman who loves him can see the whole design and has no standing 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.