In the short story The Coming of Mr Quin, Eleanor Portal is the Australian wife of Alex Portal. The pair are guests at the new year's party at Royston.
Mr Satterthwaite finds Eleanor interesting because she is so alive. He is of the opinion that she is not exactly beautiful, but there is "a kind of calamitous magic about her" that one could not miss. Her hair is naturally fair, but she has dyed it black. Her voice is described as being a "low murmuring echoing" voice, that stays in one's memory.
Mr Satterthwaite gets the impression that Eleanor is either very happy or very unhappy, but he does not know which. He also observes that she has a "curious effect" on her husband, who adores her, but is sometimes afraid of her.
After the ladies go upstairs, the men begin to discuss the death of Derek Capel, who had once owned Royston. Eleanor listens from the gallery above, huddled against the balustrade, and unseen by everyone except Mr Satterthwaite.
It is revealed that many years earlier, Eleanor had been the young wife of Mr Appleton. She had been unhappy in her marriage to him. After his death, she was seen deliberately smashing the port decanter. She was arrested for Mr Appleton's murder, and sent for trial. She was later acquitted, but it was more due to lack of evidence against her than proof of her innocence.
Mr Satterthwaite suggests that when Mr Appleton was still alive, Eleanor had rejected Derek Capel's advances. When Mr Appleton died, she suspected that Capel had poisoned the port in the decanter, and smashed the decanter to destroy the evidence against him. Mr Satterthwaite further suggests that Capel later persuaded her that he was innocent, and that she had consented to marry him.
Eleanor is still listening in the gallery while this is being discussed, and gives a "long trembling sigh".
At the end of the story, Mr Quin is leaving, and Eleanor runs out to speak to him. She later reconciles with Alex, who says that she had told him the truth before, but he had not believed her. He asks her to forgive him.
Eleanor tells Alex that she knows he has been in hell, loving, but alternately believing and suspecting, and that she had been in that state once. She also says that there is a worse hell than that, which she has lived in with him, seeing his doubt and fear of her poison their love. She tells him that she could not bear it any longer, and had been about to kill herself that night.