'There, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth or dropped from the heaven - stood the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white garments'
Hartright's contemplations on the lonely,moonlit road are rudely broken by the nameless and distressed woman in white. The encounter is to change his life, for she is at the centre of villainous machinations which are profoundly to affect him -and those he loves.
Through carefully constructed characterization,intricate plotting and masterly skill in concealing and revealing secrets, Wilkie Collins has created one of the greatest mystery thrillers in the English language.
Tins is the story of what a Woman"s patience can endure, and what a Man"s resolution can achieve.
If the machinery of the Law could be depended on to fathom every case of suspicion, and to conduct every process of inquiry,with moderate assistance only from the lubricating influences of oil of gold, the events which flU these pages might have. claimed their share of the public attention in a Court of Jnstice.
But the Law is still, in certain inevitable cases, the preengaged servant of the long purse; and the story is ]eft to be told, for the first time, in this place. As the Judge might once have heard it, so the Reader shall hear it now. No circumstance of importance, from the beginning to the end of the disclosure, shall be related on hearsay evidence When the writer of these introductory lines (Walter Hartright by name)happens to be more closely connected than others with the incidents to be recorded, he will describe them in his own person.When his experience fails, he will retire from the position of narrator; and his task will be continued, from the point at which he has left it off, by other persons who can speak to the circumstances under notice from their own knowledge, just as clearly and positively as he has spoken before them.