Walter Hartwright is a young artist who finds work as a drawing tutor to a wealthy young woman, Laura Fairlie, who lives with her invalid uncle and beloved half-sister, Marian Halcombe. Walter and Laura fall in love, but as she is already betrothed to a local landowner, Sir Percival Glyde, he has to leave her. Much later, he hears that Laura, now lady Glyde, is dead. He visits her grave, and looks up to see Laura and Marian watching him. It turns out that the villainous Percival put Laura into a lunatic asylum under the name of Ann Catherick, the mentally unstable "woman in white" whom Walter has met before, who resembled Laura and who knew a "secret" about Percival. Ann then died, and it is she who is buried in the grave. Marian rescued Laura from the asylum; the sisters and Walter now live together, and Walter finds the "secret:" Percival is illegitimate and thus has no claim to his property. After a series of struggles with Percival and his sinister friend Count Fosco, Percival dies, Walter and Laura marry and Marian lives with them.
