When Helen Stoner's sister, Roylott's stepdaughter, died, and Helen herself then left the house with her inheritance, the hot-tempered doctor had only one, the youngest stepdaughter. The girl almost did not leave the gloomy mansion, she was very pale and completely bedridden. Her stepfather rarely visited her. It was a cloudy day, a thunderstorm, the girl, having caught a cold in the old house even more, could not even get out of bed, and her stepfather was sitting next to her.