Photographer Ian Jarrett falls in love with a woman he meets on an assignment in Vienna, but back home, he receives a telephone call from Marion Esguard telling him that she will not be continuing the relationship She then disappears from his life as mysteriously as she entered it Searching frantically for her he meets a psychotherapist seeking a former patient, who believes she is the reincarnation of Marian Esguard, hailing from Regency times, and possibly the inventor of photography