Mary Grant achieves her heart's desire when the kindly Mr Romanis engages her as governess to his children: the ailing Neville and his talented, endearingly guileless sister, Rose. But Mary is haunted, not only by memories of her orphan childhood, but also by frightful dreams. Her position becomes more terrifying when Dr Savage, the family's physician, suspecting that she may have committed a brutal murder in the neighbouring village, begins to lay traps for her, and the dreadful reality of the gallows looms. Set in Victorian times, the novel follows Warwickshire Detective Inspector Jackson and his bibulous, but shrewd sergeant, Herbert Bottomley, as they set out to uncover the chilling reality underlying Mary's dreams, and bring her haunting to an end.