This slow-paced tale recounts the mysterious possession of the mind and body of Arthur Lawford, a conventional man who has long lived passively, without inner reflection and deadened to the needs of those around him. There is very little action in the novel. The entire story takes place within a few weeks, much of it within the mind of the main character.

The Return begins as Arthur, a conventional British man, is recovering from the most recent of many illnesses. During a walk in his rural English village, Arthur sits down to rest in a churchyard cemetery, where he is fascinated by the inscription on a badly weathered and broken headstone, noticeably set apart from the rest. Suddenly overcome by weakness, he falls asleep and wakes up feeling uneasy. Returning home, he is astonished to find that he does not recognize his reflection in the mirror. Worse still, Arthur’s wife, Sheila; Ada, the maid; and Mr. Bethany, the vicar, see the change in him but fear that he is actually an impostor or that he has somehow gone mad.

The Lawfords’ young daughter, Alice, is never allowed to see her father in his changed state, but she has several conversations with him in the dark of her room. Her sweetness and unwavering love for him while he is “ill” help sustain him. Arthur’s wife is unsympathetic and so scandalized by the changes in her formerly respectable husband that she goes to stay for a while with a friend, leaving Arthur alone.

Faced with the terrifying possibility of remaining in this state, Arthur takes a dramatic inner journey following another visit to the cemetery, where in his distress he is befriended by the mysterious Mr. Herbert, and later, Herbert’s gentle sister, Grisel. Herbert confides to Arthur that he has a very old French book that has in it a drawing of Nicholas Sabathier, a man who had taken his own life a century earlier and who was buried beneath the headstone that had so interested Arthur.

Herbert and Grisel take pity on Arthur in his distress and invite him to stay with them for a few days of rest. Arthur has never seen or met them before, nor noticed the house they live in, though it is not far from his home. These eccentric characters are described in such a way that the reader is left to wonder if they exist at all outside Arthur’s imagination.

Arthur remains in his changed state for several days. He talks at length with Herbert and Grisel about his fears, but he is aware that he must battle his inner demons alone. He is agonized, reflective, and remorseful about the way he has lived up until now. He accepts that he must learn to go his own way, and through this acceptance, he finally is released from the grip of the ghost of Sabathier. The story ends as his old friend, Bethany, enters a room in the Lawford home and recognizes the old Arthur asleep in a chair.

Herbert home

Herbert home. Ramshackle house in the English countryside, home to Herbert Herbert and his sister Grisel. Herbert describes the residence as a “queer old shanty,” but Arthur Lawford finds it a pleasing refuge from the problems his psychic possession causes at home. Peculiarities of the house mirror Arthur’s predicament. The house is situated at a point where the rushing River Widder washes against its lower walls. Similarly, it is purportedly haunted by a ghost which insinuates itself into living beings, and this is how Arthur becomes possessed. The spirit of Nicholas...