Police detective John 'Scottie' Ferguson is asked by an old college friend, Gavin Elster, if he would have a look into his wife Madeleine's odd behavior. Lately, she's taken to believing that she is the reincarnation of a woman who died many years ago and Elster is concerned about her sanity. Scottie follows her and rescues her from an apparent suicide attempt when she jumps into San Francisco bay. He gets to know her and falls in love with her. They go to an old mission church and he is unable to stop her from climbing to the top of the steeple, owing to his vertigo, where she jumps to her death. A subsequent inquiry finds that she committed suicide but faults Scottie for not stopping her in the first place. Humiliated and haunted by what has happened, he leaves the police force. Several months later, he meets Judy Barton, a woman who is the spitting image of Madeleine. He can't explain it, but she is identical to the woman who died. He tries to re-make her into Madeleine's image by getting her to dye her hair and wear the same type of clothes. He soon begins to realize however that he has been duped and was a pawn in a complex piece of theater that was meant to end in tragedy.
