The provided excerpts offer an intimate perspective on the unraveling of Stella Raphael's life following her affair with Edgar Stark, a patient confined to the maximum-security hospital where her husband, Max Raphael, works. Told primarily through the lens of a psychiatrist named Dr. Cleave, the narrative details Edgar, a sculptor convicted of murdering his wife due to paranoid jealousy, and his restoration of a Victorian conservatory at Max and Stella's house, which facilitates the secret relationship. After Edgar escapes, Stella follows him to London, abandoning her family, only to find the relationship collapsing due to squalor, fear, and Edgar's increasingly disturbed mental state. Stella eventually returns, is arrested for her role in her son Charlie's accidental drowning, and is then admitted to the hospital as Dr. Cleave’s patient, who plans to use her to further his own career ambitions, while suspecting she remains obsessed with Edgar, who has also been returned to the asylum.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.