The story open on Patesville, North Carolina, a sleepy town whose peak has come and gone. On a spring day, several years after the end of the Civil War, John Warwick exits the Patesville Hotel and heads down to the market-house. He approaches the market-house and notices that little has changed since the time he has left the town. Most of the changes—a few burned ruins and a black policeman—have come from the war.

Warwick tries the door for the offices of Archibald Straight, but it is locked. He enters the coffin shop next door and learns that Judge Straight keeps irregular hours. Warwick walks to Liberty Point where he spots a beautiful young woman and follows her. She walks out of the prosperous part of town and into the slum. Warwick is impressed by her fine figure and beautiful features, reasoning that “a woman with such a figure […] ought to be able to face the world with the confidence of Phryne confronting her judges” (8).

A growing sense of familiarity dawns upon Warwick, and he realizes that the woman is Rena, his sister. Warwick watches Rena enter her house which is set back behind a stand of dwarf cedar trees.