Etienne Lomel has been experiencing severe stomach pains for some time, without any actual disease being diagnosed. He is afraid, and worried, and this feeling is linked to his wife Louise, who keeps him under her control, on whom he depends for everything. Louise has already been married. Etienne was her lover before her husband died. He remembers her fear, and the oaths she demanded of him: he would never give up on her and, one day, he would marry her. Slowly, Etienne faces the truth he has never admitted, that she poisoned her previous husband to marry him, and their passionate embraces just silence remorse. Etienne manages not to eat any food at home for fear that it might contain arsenic, he spies on his wife, and discovers that she has a lover. Determined to keep his wife and resolved not to die, he plans to kill his rival