Yew Hall, built at the time of the Crusades, is a house to which most things have happened during the last eight hundred years. It is as important a character in this unusual story as the beautiful young woman, Arabella, her husband, Mark, and his twin brother, who play out a passionate tragedy under the eyes of the narrator, the owner of the house. Arabella, with her red-gold hair and elegant clothes, is self-centred and spoilt, greedy for attention and constant entertainment. Mark is more outward-looking with an open friendliness and an intense interest in the house and its history. Roger, his brother, is an actor, whose health is frail and whose nerves are strained by the wretched uncertainty of his career. These three come together and finally destroy each other, while the house, within whose walls such dramas have been going on for centuries, remains.