After the end of World War II, a young man named Tom Beaver returns to the small town he grew up in on weekends to visit his old aunt and recapture the nostalgia of his youth. The people of the town admire how he’s found success after growing up poor. One day, he mentions to the local pharmacist that he saw the ghost of a man who asks for help with a sick child in a wagon at dusk, or “first dark,” as the local legend goes. A woman named Frances Harvey overhears and says that she also has seen that ghost, and this connection is enough for them to begin going out.  After a few dates, Frances takes Tom to meet her bedridden mother, who she cares for full-time. Frances and her mother often argue, and Frances realizes that she cannot leave her mother and marry Tom until she dies, which will likely not be for a long time. However, her mother dies soon after, and it isn’t until after her funeral that Frances finds an empty box of sedatives and discovers her mother committed suicide to allow her to marry Tom. She drives around to keep herself occupied and helps the ghost from earlier without even realizing it. Her reaction worries Tom, and he decides that they must leave her old house and town at once. Frances agrees and they drive away together.