Many years earlier, whilst still a junior solicitor for Bentley, Kipps is summoned to Crythin Gifford, a small market town on the northeast coast of England, to attend the funeral of Mrs. Alice Drablow and settle her estate.

At the funeral, Kipps sees a woman dressed in black and with a pale face and dark eyes, whom a group of children are silently watching.

Over the next several days, as Kipps sorts through Mrs. Drablow's papers at Eel Marsh House, he endures an increasingly terrifying sequence of unexplained noises, chilling events and appearances by the Woman in Black.

In one of these instances, he hears the sound of a horse and carriage in distress, followed by the screams of a young child and his maid, coming from the direction of the marshes.

One day, a pony and trap carrying the boy across the causeway became lost and sank into the marshes, killing all aboard, while Jennet looked on helplessly from the window.

After Jennet died, she returned to haunt Eel Marsh House and the town of Crythin Gifford, as the malevolent Woman in Black.

After some time (but still years before the beginning of the story), Kipps returns to London, marries Stella, has a child of his own, and tries to put the events at Crythin Gifford behind him.

She steps out in front of the horse and startles it, causing it to bolt and wreck the carriage against a tree, killing the child instantly and critically injuring Stella, who dies ten months later.

[2] For the 30th Anniversary year the West End cast from May 2018-March 2019 was Richard Hope as Arthur Kipps and Mark Hawkins as the Actor, then from 19 March 2019 Stuart Fox with Matthew Spencer.