During World War I, Jack Agnew, a soldier, writes a letter to a librarian named Louisa. The soldier says that he remembers her when he visited the library and loves her. Louisa tries to find the soldier when the war ends, even when he stops replying to her letters. This search is difficult as she doesn't even know how he looks. It becomes even more complicated when the Spanish flu epidemic occurs, and she fears he is dead. Regardless, Louisa keeps the library open in hopes that he will visit. One day Louisa discovers in the newspaper that the former soldier just married his fiancé, with whom he had been engaged before and during the war. Louisa is heartbroken at Agnew's deception and wonders why he wrote her that letter. Years later, Agnew dies while working in a factory. The factory owner, Arthur Doud, returns the books the former soldier had taken out to Louisa. The two eventually fall in love and marry. After some years, Doud dies, and years later Louisa is helping maintain the factory. She has to go to a heart specialist one day, and on the way to the doctor, she hallucinates that Jack is alive and has a conversation with him where she tells Jack of her successes, such as marrying Arthur.