As the plague of 2020 stalks the land, Isaiah Meriwether is sinking into nihilism. He is a fairly successful painter, who has lost his inspiration. He has recently landed in the news, enduring much ridicule. Laboring over his unresolved grief for a woman, who has died from the virus, leads him to doubt his life's journey. His lasting fondness for the novels of Charles Dickens has become a religious fervor. He is desperate to restore his lost idealism. Upon renewing an acquaintance with Margaret Gates his perspective of the world begins to change. She reveals a mansion of love far more grandiose than anything he has imagined. However, to move himself there, he must let go of what he has most wanted in life.