Fleetwood Chatlwurth, a young wife and the lady of Gawthorpe Hall, accidentally discovers a letter addressed to her husband from the doctor, informing him that her pregnancy places her and her child at risk of death.

While contemplating this grim news, she encounters a mysterious woman in the woods of her estate carrying a bag of dead rabbits, who claims she did not kill them but that they were slain, before disappearing.