In the story, a middle-aged woman named Mary Anstruther and her husband George have recently moved to a large house in the countryside. Mary Anstruther decides that she wants to convert part of the house's spacious grounds into a rose garden. Doing so requires removing an old wooden post that is firmly embedded in the soil. Miss Wilkins, whose family lived in the house before the Anstruthers, tells Mary Anstruther that the spot that she has selected for her rose garden used to be the site of a summer house. Miss Wilkins' younger brother once fell asleep in the summer house and had a vivid dream in which he was condemned to death by a cruel judge. After the old wooden post is removed from the ground, George Anstruther has a similar nightmare and other strange things start to happen.