A naive governess is hired to care for two children, Miles and Flora, in a remote country house in Essex. She becomes convinced that the brother and sister are somehow possessed by the ghosts of two former servants, a pair of now-dead lovers, and her actions based on this conviction have dire results. Are the ghosts real or simply figments of her imagination? Is the governess mentally disturbed -- or is this perhaps a fiendish plot by Miles, the boy, who has been banished from a boarding school for undefined behavior described as "corrupt?"