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The protagonist, David Kelsey, a young engineer, lives under the obsessive illusion of love for Annabelle, a girl he has only spent a few weeks with. While he is at work, she marries Gerald, but David refuses to accept it – in his mind, "The Situation" can be resolved, Annabelle will return. Under the assumed name William Neumeister, a traveling journalist, he buys a country house furnished to her taste and on weekends he acts out their life together: cooking for two, writing her letters, walking in fantasies.

His obsession escalates: he visits Annabelle, begging her for a divorce, even after the birth of their son. Gerald discovers the house and confronts David; in the fight he falls and breaks his neck. David, as Neumeister, reports an "accident" with an unknown assailant to the police, but his friends Wes Carmichael and Effie Brennan, who follow him and suspect his duality, press him more and more. Effie, in love with him, protects his secrets, but David lies to Annabelle who wants to talk to "Neumeister" about her husband's death.

After Annabelle begins a new relationship with Grant, David sells the old house and buys a new one closer to her, repeating invasive rituals. A weekend with Wes and Effie ends in a drunken brawl and violence; David escapes to New York, where he fantasizes about Annabelle going out with him. But the past catches up with him – recognized in a restaurant as a suspect, he falls into a delirium of obsession, where the "sweet nausea" of love turns into a deadly trap.