A Christmas house-party at a grand old English estate brings together a group of family and friends whose complicated relations are clarified and healed over the course of Christmas holidays. Maurice Treherne is a young man confined to a wheelchair after saving the life of his cousin, Sir Jasper Treherne. Maurice's love is given to his cousin Octavia, although their romance is blocked by Jasper and Octavia's mother who feels that she can't give her daughter to a cripple. Also in the party is Mrs. Snowdon, a beautiful young woman whose affections Jasper and Maurice once competed for, and who seems determined to renew her conquest. What further complicates the situation is a mysterious ghostly appearance in the attic and what hides behind it.