College friends Bark and Jerry discover their old friend Professor LeNormand dead in his observatory, burned to death from the inside out. Most shocking, the confirmed bachelor had just married an enigmatic woman who seems unfazed by his death. Within days, Jerry is engaged to marry the mysterious widow, leading Bark to believe she was somehow involved in the professor's death.

Sheppey is an English barber who wins big playing the Irish sweepstakes and decides to spread his wealth among the poor and sick. Along the way, he meets an impoverished shop girl in a local pub.

A war widow must decide whether to live in the past or begin a new life in the present. She faces serious objections on re-marriage from the mother-in-law of her late husband.

A young artist who has lost his vision falls for and marries his secretary, a woman of great inner beauty but "plain Jane" looks. When an operation restores the artists' sight, his wife becomes insecure because she can never match the vision of beauty he had of her in his mind.

The successful writer of detective stories is the last person to see a young woman alive. The girl, Isobel, also shares the name of the heroine in one of the author's novels.