Edward Sylvester is a respectable gentleman, a pet of fate. In the recent past, he was a stock-market speculator; today, he’s the director of one of the largest banks in New York. He has all the attributes of a luxurious life: a huge house, a beauty of a wife. But his soul is burdened by some secret, and the fear that one day it will become public—and then everything will collapse, leaving only memories of a “happy life.”