Proud and solitary, El Marsh House surveys the windswept reaches of the salt marshes beyond Nine Lives Causeway. Arther Kipps, a junior solicitor, is summoned to attend the funeral of Mrs Alice Drablow, the houses sole inhabitant, unaware of the tragic secrets which lie hidden behind the shuttered windows. It is not until he glimpses a wasted young woman, dressed all in black, at the funeral that a creeping sense of unease begins to take hold, a feeling deepened by the reluctance of the locals to talk of the woman in black - and her terrible purpose.