Spencer Brydon, a middle-aged American who has spent thirty-three years in Europe, returns to New York after his family's deaths. Obsessed with imagining the man he might have become had he remained in America to pursue business, he haunts his empty childhood house at night, sensing a ghostly presence—his alternate self. One night he finally confronts this spectral double, a ruthless, maimed figure of wealth and power, and collapses in terror. He awakens in the arms of Alice Staverton, the woman who loves him, who has dreamed of his alter ego and accepts both of his possible selves.
