Based on the short story from George Eliot's 1857 work Scenes of a Clerical life. A chaplain to an aristocratic British family falls in love with their ward, a young Italian woman, who he marries. Tragedy strikes when she dies only a few months later leaving him in a state of grief.

The first screen adaptation of Emily Bronte's book about star cross'd lovers who demolish themselves and everyone around them with their self-destructive love.