Despite her beloved mother's deathbed warning, Phoebe Mulligan has no choice but to throw herself on the mercy of her uncle, Edward. The tragic young girl makes her way to Blackburn, but there is no warm welcome awaiting her there. Banished to a bare attic, faced with hostility from her cousin, Margaret, Phoebe cannot understand why she is treated so harshly by Edward Dickens. She is not to know the guilty secret that casts its sinister shadow over his feelings for his lovely niece.