She spoke haltingly. He could not see her through the mesh that covered the grille. There was only the low and rhythmic whimper of a voice of Eve. The same, the same, everlastingly the same, and even a woman with two heads could not contrive new ways of courting evil, but could only pursue a mindless mimicry of the Original. Still feeling the shame of his own behavior with the girl and the officers and Cors, he found it hard to concentrate. Still, his hands shook as he listened. The rhythm of the words came dull and muffled through the grille, like the rhythm of distant hammering. Spikes driven through palms, piercing timber. As alter Christus he sensed the weight of each burden for a moment before it passed on to the One who bore them all. There was the business about her mate. There were the murky and secret things, things to be wrapped in dirty newspaper and buried by night. That he could only make sense of a little of it, seemed to make the horror worse.