"But," I argued, "you told me yourself she said they'd represent him. And they do, don't they?"
"Represent him?" He grinned in his agony. "I should think they did."
"But," I persisted, because he seemed to me to be shirking the issue, "it was her idea, wasn't it? that they'd justify him, give him his chance to speak, to put himself straight with _us_?"
"She seems," he said meditatively, "to have taken that for granted."
"Taken it for granted? Skittles!" I said. "She must have seen they were impossible. I'm convinced, Burton, that she's seen it all along; she's merely testing you to see how you'd behave, how far you'd go for her. You needn't worry. You've gone far enough. She'll let you off."
"No," he said, "she's not testing me. I'd have seen through her if it had been that. It's deadly serious. It's a sacred madness with her. She'll never let me off. She'll never let herself off. I've told you a hundred times it's expiation. We can't get round _that_."
"She must be mad, indeed," I said, "not to see."
"See? See?" he cried. "It's my belief, Simpson, that she hasn't seen. She's been hiding her dear little head in the sand."
"I mean," he said, "she hasn't looked. She's been afraid to."
"Hasn't read the damned things. She doesn't know how they expose him."
"Then, my dear fellow," I said, "you've got to tell her."
"Tell her?" he cried. "If I told her she _would_ go and hang herself. No. I'm not to tell her. I'm not to tell anybody. She's got an idea that he's pretty well exposed himself, and, don't you see, I'm to wrap him up."
"Wrap him up, so that she can't see, so that nobody can see. _That's_ what I'm here for--to edit him, Simpson, edit him out of all recognition. She hasn't put it to herself that way, but that's what she means. I'm to do my best for him. She's left it to me with boundless trust in my--my constructive imagination. Do you see?"
I did. There was no doubt that he had hit it.
"This thing" (he brought his fist down on it), "when I've finished with it, won't be Wrackham: it'll be all me."
"That's to say you'll be identified with him?"
"Identified--crucified--scarified with him. You don't suppose they'd spare me? I shall be every bit as--as impossible as he is."
"You can see all that, and yet you're going through with it?"