Stella Raphael, a woman of great beauty and formidable intelligence, is married to Max, a staid and unimaginative forensic psychiatrist. Max has taken a job in a huge top-security mental hospital in rural England and Stella, far from London society, finds herself restless and bored. Then into her lonely existence comes Edgar Stark, a brilliant sculptor confined to the hospital after killing his wife in a psychotic rage.

He comes to Stella's garden merely to rebuild an old, Victorian conservatory, but there's an overwhelming physical attraction to this desperate man that Stella is powerless to ignore. Their explosive affair pits them against Stella's husband, her child, and the entire institution. When the crisis comes, Stella makes her decision - one that will destroy several lives and precipitate an appalling tragedy that could only be fueled by illicit sexual love.