A young art teacher, Walter Hartright, meets a strange woman, Anne Catherick, dressed all in white. They talk together and Walter is puzzled by the fact that the woman knows a member of the family he is about to start work with. Walter goes to Limmeridge House in Cumberland and starts his new job, teaching art to two half sisters, Laura Fairlie and Marian, whose parents are both dead.
He falls in love with Laura, who closely resembles the ‘woman in white’, but Laura marries another man because she promised to her father. Marian advises Walter to leave Limmeridge House, because Laura is engaged to baronet Sir Percival Glyde, who is coming soon. Laura receives an anonymous warning against her future marriage, and Walter remembers the ‘woman in white’ talking about some wicked and cruel baronet. He thinks the warning letter is from that woman.
Walter goes to the churchyard to see the strange woman who was seen there. They meet and she gives him her name, Anne Catherick, and that she has escaped from the asylum where Sir Percival shut her up. Then she gets frightened and runs away.
Before Walter goes away, he and Marian go to the village to find Anne Catherick to talk to her. When they arrive, they find that Anne has already gone.