This is a mystery story set in a village, and the story opens with two young men, Frank Etheridge and Edgar Sellick, meeting on a train leaving Marston station. Frank is a lawyer and a stranger in Marston, while Edgar is a native and returning to resume his career as a physician. They had attended the same college and met by chance on the train. Edgar is returning to town after a short and fruitless absence in the west. Frank is summoned to the house of a dying woman to draw up her will, where he encounters a beautiful woman with a mysterious scar. As he tries to find the legitimate heirs, the events take a dark and sinister turn.