In the midst of a harshly disapproving Victorian San Francisco, Cordelia Botkin, a charmingly passionate woman, find the love of her life outside of her marriage in a Mr. John C. Dunning. After being given an ultimatum by his controlling wife, however, John breaks it off with an unsuspecting Cordelia, plunging them both into lonely and agonizing depression. Cordelia, cornered and desperate, sees only one way to win John back: by eliminating his controlling wife with a box of arsenic laced chocolates.