“ Without a certain amount of lust,” the doctor said, “the human race would cease to exist.”

“ You could make the same argument for the other six sins as well,” the priest told him, “because what is any of them but a distortion of a normal and essential human instinct? There is a difference, I submit, between the natural desire of a man for a maid and what we would label as sinful lust.”

“ What about the desire of a man for a man?” the doctor wondered. “Or a maid for a maid?”

“ Or a farmer’s son for a sheep?” The priest sat back in his chair. “We call some desires normal, others abnormal, and much depends on who’s making the call.”

The discussion was a lively one, and ranged far and wide. At length the policeman held up a hand. “If I may,” he said. “Priest, you started this. Unintentionally, perhaps, by voicing a thought when you only meant to pass. But you must have had something in mind.”

“ An altar boy,” suggested the doctor. “Or an altered boy.”

“ Nun of the above,” the soldier put in.

“ You should show the cloth a measure of respect,” the priest said. “But I did have something in mind, as a matter of fact. Something that came to me, though I couldn’t tell you why. Rather an interesting incident that took place some years ago. But we’re in the middle of a game, aren’t we?”

A gentle snore came from the old man dozing beside the fire. The four card players looked at him. Then the policeman and the doctor and the soldier turned their gaze to the priest.

“ Tell the story,” the policeman said.

Some years ago (said the priest) I came to know a young couple named William and Carolyn Thompson. I say a young couple because they were slightly younger than I, and I was not quite forty at the time, which now seems to me to be very young indeed. Let’s say that he was thirty-six when I met them, and she thirty-eight. I may be off slightly in their ages, but not in the age difference between them. She was just two years the elder.