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Rudyard Kipling’s story set in 1880’s India recounts the story of Dr. Heatherlegh’s patient, Jack Pansay, after a failed romance and slow decline of the woman as she slowly and pitiably fades in sadness to her death while he falls deeply in love with another woman. Yet in the time following this, Pansay is increasingly haunted by Agnes Keith-Wessington as she begins appearing -- again and again -- in a ghostly rickshaw that only he can see.

When Jack Pansay's affair with Mrs. Keith-Wessington comes to an unseemly end, he believes the matter to be over. But Mrs. Wessington's obsession with him continues year after year, as she stalks him in her rickshaw around the walks of Simla. When Pansay announces his engagement to Kitty Mannering, the trauma is too much for Mrs. Wessington and she dies shortly afterwards. But this is only the beginning of Pansay's torment. From now on, the ghost of Mrs. Wessington appears in her rickshaw.

After a passionate affair with Agnes Keith-Wessington, Jack Pansay wearies of her and becomes engaged to Miss Kitty Mannering. However, Wessington refuses to accept the rejection and reappears in Jack’s life, trying to make him reconsider. But to her greatest regret, Pansay continues to respond curtly and brutally. Not so long after, Agnes dies of a broken heart. From this moment on, Jack's life will never be the same again.

This collection brings together 17 of Kipling's early stories, written between 1885 and 1888, when Kipling was working as a journalist in India. "The Man Who Would Be King" is the story of two British vagabonds who set off to establish a small kingdom among primitive tribesmen in Afghanistan. Only one of the men returns, and his condition is so bad that the newspaperman-narrator barely recognizes him.