People developed anxieties.

Mrs. Drover and her family left their London home because of the Blitz.  She returned one day to her abandoned house to fetch a few items.  Once there, she found a strange letter.  It was supposedly from her former lover, a man who was presumed dead long ago.  He had been an ominous fellow.  He had cut her hand many years before, and she still bore the scar.  Mrs. Drover

instinctively looked for the weal left by the button on the palm of her hand ("The Demon Lover").

In the letter, her former lover promised to meet Mrs. Drover on that day, and she dreaded such a meeting.  She quickly left her house.  She found a taxi cab and got into it.  It began to drive and then stopped.  She saw the driver:

Mrs. Drover's mouth hung open for some seconds before she could issue her first scream.  After that she continued to scream freely and to beat with her gloved hands on the glass all round as the taxi, accelerating without mercy, made off with her into the hinterland of deserted streets.

The writer does not clearly state whether Mrs. Drover was indeed held captive in the taxi cab by her former lover, or if it was all in her mind.  The traumatizing effects of the Blitz may have caused her to enter an altered psychological state.  This state may have led her to imagine the encounter with her former lover.

When Kathleen Drover first realizes that there is a letter for her on the hall table, she is merely annoyed. Her feelings of annoyance shift to reflect a sense of alarm and apprehension as she realizes who the letter must be from.

Kathleen and her family have left their home in London to spend some time in the countryside during the war, feeling that they will be safer there for a while. She has left a caretaker in charge of looking after her home in London during their absence. She knows that he is away on holiday, and he has no idea that she had planned to be in London on this day. Her mail is supposed to be redirected to their countryside home, so when she sees the letter, she believes that the caretaker has been "negligent" in his handling of her personal affairs.

Her reaction quickly shifts to shock and even horror as she finishes reading the letter. She drops it onto the bed and must pick it up to examine the details once more. The letter is simply signed "K.," seemingly penned by the fiancé of her youth, who has long been presumed dead. He has asked her to meet him "at the hour arranged," since it is their "anniversary." She also realizes that this man must have somehow entered her house and personally placed the letter on the hall table for her to discover.

Kathleen frantically tries to imagine at what hour this prearranged and long-forgotten meeting might occur. Her "rapidly heightening apprehension" mounts as she begins to recall the last time she saw this man before he returned to fight during World War I.