Wilkie Collins 
The Legacy of Cain 

Wilkie Collins’ last-but-one novel was originally published in 1889. The Reverend Abel Gracedieu raises two daughters. One of them was adopted seventeen years before the story starts because her mother was executed for murdering her husband. The main question of the plot is whether this adoption will not end in a very bad away because the daughter is allegedly as evil and wicked as her mother ….