“There is no harm to it?”
“None.”
“It will be a thing often done, is it not?”
“Ay, sure.”
“And the evil does not abide?”
“No. The … the … person … the person takes them away, and …”
“Them?”
“For sure, man! Them … the sins of the corpse. He takes them away; and are you for thinking God would let the innocent suffer for the guilty? No … the person … the Sin-Eater, you know … takes them away on himself, and one by one the air of heaven washes them away till he, the Sin-Eater, is clean and whole as before.”
“But if it is a man you hate … if it is a corpse that is the corpse of one who has been a curse and a foe … if …”