Nothing in this world is hidden forever. The gold which has lain for centuries unsuspected in the ground, reveals itself one day on the surface. Sand turns traitor, and betrays the footstep that has passed over it; water gives back to the tell-tale surface the body that has been drowned. Fire itself leaves the confession, in ashes, of the substance consumed in it. Hate breaks its prison-secrecy in the thoughts, through the doorway of the eyes; and Love finds the Judas who betrays it by a kiss. Look where we will, the inevitable law of revelation is one of the laws of nature: the lasting preservation of a secret is a miracle which the world has never yet seen.

He was often unable to leave his home and had difficulty writing. His next novel No Name combined social commentary – the absurdity of the law as it applied to children of unmarried parents (see Illegitimacy in fiction) – with a densely plotted revenge thriller. He learned Italian while the family was in Italy and began learning French with which he would eventually become fluent.

A number of Collins's works were first publiWilkie Collinsd in Dickens's journals All the Year Round and Household Words. The two collaborated on several dramatic and fictional works and some of Collins's plays were performed by Dickens's acting company. Writing at the time of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 he stated "I begin to believe in only one civilising influence—the discovery one of these days of a destructive agent so terrible that War shall mean annihilation and men's fears will force them to keep the peace.