1876. The money-grubbing young barrister Charles Bravo marries a wealthy widow whose previous husband had died under suspicious circumstances. Charles Bravo turns out to be a wife-beater. When he winds up dead from antimony poisoning, suspicion falls on the wife. Others implicated include her long-time devoted lover Dr James Gully, her companion Mrs Cox and her former coachman whom the intemperate Charles had earlier sacked.