A young girl is taking ballet-lessons in the grand ballroom of what appears to be a French chateau. While pirouetting under an enormous chandelier, she looks up and becomes fixated on it, as she imagines it crashing down on her, and she collapses to the floor, just as though it had been a real event. Indeed she insists - for years - that it actually was a real event, despite all the efforts of her kindly father (Paul Langton, later of Peyton Place), her doctor, and eventually her fiancé too, to cure her of her obsession.
Even at her engagement party, having reluctantly agreed to dine under that very chandelier, she is disturbed when her guests start asking each other, half jokingly, how they would most like to meet their death. She declares, without a trace of humour, that she already knows how she will meet hers... We can't tell you more. But the ending is not the one you expect.
The 'One Step Beyond' series is meant to be loosely based on true stories ("human record" is the weasel claim), but I guess this one is truer than most. Names and dates are given, which they usually aren't. Some effort has gone into creating a suitable period atmosphere, and a very agreeable one too, with one particular waltz-theme holding the story together. When the pianist's hands are carefully kept out of sight, we can guess that she's not playing for real, but it does rather spoil things when she is seen to be turning a page of the music, while supposedly playing a two-handed melody!