"If Cresswell is mad we must pity him,
not condemn him. But we must, above all, fight him. Could I prove his
madness the danger would be averted? Possibly time will give me the
means of proving it. I have watched him. I shall continue to watch him.
But as yet, although I see enough to convince me of his insanity, I
don't see enough to convince the world, or, above all, to convince
Julian. Therefore never give Julian the slightest hint of what I have
told you of to-day. His adoration of Valentine is such that even a hint
might easily lead him to regard both you and me as his enemies. Keep your
own counsel and mine, but act with me on the silent assumption that
Cresswell being a madman, we are justified in fighting him to the bitter
end, you and I, with all our forces."
"I see," Cuckoo said, a burning excitement beginning to wake in her.
"Justified in fighting him, but not in hating him."
"Oh," she said, with a much more doubtful accent.
"Scarcely any human being, if indeed any, is completely hateful. How then
can a human being, whose mind is ill and out of control, be hateful?"
said the doctor, gently.
She felt herself rebuked, and a quick thought of herself, of what she
was, rebuked her too.
"I'll try not," she murmured, but with no inward conviction of success.
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