An alcoholic civil servant is abandoned by his wife and comes home to an empty house.
Rome, in the latter part of the 19th century. A plague is raging through all that part of Italy, and death is beginning to visit households in the city itself. A rich and famous hostess is determined to crown her social career by giving a splendid ball for the most awesome guest of honour of all--the lordly Death himself.
Keith Michell portrays a sad man who books a room in an English seaside hotel with a revolver in his luggage and an intention to shoot himself. Once in his room alone, we watch him silently and sadly unpack the gun, place it in front of him on the table in his room and prepare to do away with himself. He slowly places a bullet in the chamber and positions the gun to his head. At that moment there comes a knock on the door. He hides the gun and answers the door to find a pretty young woman standing there played by Geraldine McEwan.
A woman's romantic tryst with a married man is interrupted by the arrival of his wife.