On a stormy afternoon in Boston, medical student Reuel Briggs sits alone, contemplating the loneliness of his life, and entertaining “morbid thoughts” that lead him to question what the hard work of survival will avail him in the end. To distract himself, he reads a newly-published book on psychology whose ideas verge into the mystical and supernatural. Reuel, who has a strong interest in spiritualist phenomena, dreams of carrying out the experiments necessary to affirm the book’s conclusions.

The third-person narrator pauses to describe Reuel’s physical appearance. His appearance is striking, even fascinating, and, while he passes as white, his skin is “of a tint suggesting olive” (3), leading his classmates to speculate that he may be Italian or Japanese. He appears to have no relatives and few friends, but he is known as an excellent scientist. He supports himself by tutoring undergraduates and writing scientific articles.

Gazing into the storm outside, Reuel suddenly has a vision of a hauntingly beautiful, earnest, and wistful woman’s face. His attempt to process what he has just witnessed is interrupted by the arrival of Aubrey Livingston, who Reuel considers his only friend. Aubrey is a white man from the South, who helped Reuel early in his college career.