The violet apple & The witch Book

Like The Haunted Woman & Sphinx, The Violet Apple opens as its protagonist receives an inheritance, tho not money in this case. Anthony Kerr is a successful playwright, a fusion of G.B. Shaw & H.P. Lovecraft. He presents entertaining philosophical arguments to the public, but only by disguising his belief that humans are little better than insects in the face of vast, cosmic forces. While Kerr is finishing the 1st act of a new play. A parcel arrives containing a family heirloom predating the Crusades: a glass snake containing a withered pip supposedly from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil. A visiting friend, Jim Lytham, accidentally breaks the ornament. Kerr pockets the seed. Lytham's announces his engagement to Haidee Croyland. At the ensuing party, Kerr announces he too is to wed: Grace, Lytham's sister. Haidee unenthusiastically receives the news, either thru jealousy or because she's unsure of her feelings. She surreptitiously demands Kerr meet her by an old ruined tower the next day or she'll end her engagement to Lytham. The meeting causes complications. On a morning walk, Lytham & Grace happen upon Haidee & Kerr. When they refuse to explain their rendezvous' purpose, Lytham & Grace start doubting their respective engagements. Complications escalate. Haidee can't decide whether her feelings are for Kerr & whether she ought attend to them. They're caught at other meetings. Lytham stops speaking to Kerr. There's talk of cancelling the weddings. Meanwhile, Kerr has given the seed to Lytham's other sister, Virginia. She plants it. A tiny, withered tree grows remarkably quickly, producing two small, violet fruits. Affairs between Haidee, Kerr, Lytham & Grace come to crisis. Haidee, who has an impulsive personality reminiscent of Krag's, snatches one, eats it & leaves. Kerr gets a letter from her afterwards, asking him to eat the remaining fruit & relate his sensations. He does, entering a state of profound insight. He realises his soul is written nakedly on his face (cf. Adam's realisation after eating the fruit) & that he can read others' true natures on their faces. His fiancé Grace appears banal & prosaic to him. Haidee alone has meaning for him. He goes to her. She seems angelic to him, but doesn't reciprocate his feelings. Altho having felt similarly towards him upon eating the fruit 30 hours prior, now, not only have the convictions behind those earlier insights departed, but she's also lost all sense of beauty in the world. Lytham turns up as Kerr kneels before Haidee & breaks off his engagement. Haidee persuades Kerr to leave. He does & cools down. Not only does he lose the conviction Haidee is divine, he also loses all interest in his art. He tries reconciling with Grace but fails. Walking later he comes upon Haidee at a place where two trees form a cross—a place he recognises from a landscape painting he bought prior to the novel's beginning, & which impressed him then as expressing a part of his destiny. At 1st, the couple are dejected, seemingly resigned to the loss of their feelings for one another. Then Haidee says that, altho they might never recapture the intense feelings given by eating the violet apples, they might at least work towards it & "then it will be ours, not a free gift this time, but ours."