It happened in Rome. It happened to a respectable family. It was awful, but could have been worse. Impulse, pleasure, betrayal and unimaginable consequences, pain and misery. How and why? How could he, why did she, and what about the third and all other interested parties? It was a dream, and it was reality with a vengeance. Was it excusable? Would it ever be forgiven? This book offers answers to such questions, but readers will have to decide whether or not they are the end of the story. Julian Fane's books go back a long way, but they are still going forward numerically - see the list of his publications at the front of this book. Here he describes a 'sin' and a human predicament with a lucidity and sympathy that do not date.