An off-screen narrator relates a tale he heard on a veranda in India about a man named Mr. Scott who fascinates two couples at dinner with a story about Dr. John Jones, a physician and scientist, and his wife Mary Jones. They are a couple very much in love. She’s injured; as a result she is confined to a wheelchair. They go to Lourdes for her to bathe in the holy waters much as Indians bathe in the Ganges. John is a rational man; he believes that a cure at Lourdes comes only to those whose malady is psychological. Scott continues his narrative, completing it as his wife joins the table. Scott’s most skeptical listener considers the tale - can it be believed?