When the young Philip Ashley first meets Rachel, the beautiful but disturbing Italian widow of his cousin Ambrose, he is bewitched by her; and his infatuation will soon bring him to the brink of ruin and even put his own life in danger.

Philip's doubts and suspicions about his mysterious cousin intensify even as he is allowing himself to fall more deeply under her spell, and as he struggles to establish the truth about her the story builds to a dramatic climax.

 'There are some women… who through no fault of their own impel disaster. '