Notwithstanding all Lady Ingram's condemnation of feelings, she was just now overpowered by her own. In the foreground was amazement. Had her little pug Venus opened its mouth and emitted a moral axiom, she could hardly have been more astonished. Behind her surprise came annoyance, amusement, and respect for the strange, new bravery of Celia; but in the background, beyond all those, was a very unpleasant and unusual sensation, which she did not attempt to analyze. It was, really, the discovery of a character which she could not fathom, of a strength which she could not weaken, of a temple into which she could not enter. She had always prided herself upon her ability to read every person's character at a glance: and here was the especial character which she had set down as simple, and almost beneath notice, presenting itself in an aspect which it was beyond her skill to comprehend. She had not, indeed, forgotten Celia's confession at the outset of their acquaintance; but she had set it down to her English education, as a past phase of thought which she had succeeded in dispelling. A little more banter on the one hand, and firmness on the other, would, she thought, rid Celia of her absurd and obsolete notions. She had threaded all the mazes, and she meant her speech just uttered to be the last turn in the path, the last struggle between herself and her step-daughter. And lo! here, at that last turn, stood a guarded sanctuary, too strong for her weapons to attack, into which she knew not the way, of whose services she had never learned the language. A strange and sudden darkness fell over her spirit. There was a Power here in opposition to her stronger than her own. This simple, docile, untaught girl knew some strange thing which she did not know. And with this conviction came another and a disagreeable idea. Might it not be something which it immediately concerned her to know? What if Celia were right--if all things were not bounded by this life; if there were another, unknown world beyond this world, guided by different laws? What if God were real, and Heaven were real, and Hell were real? if there were a point beyond which prayers were mockery, and penances were vain? A veil was lifted up for a moment which had covered all this from her; a dark, thick, heavy veil, which all her life she had been at work to weave. A voice from Heaven whispered to her, and it said, "Thou fool!" When moments such as these do not soften and convict, they harden and deaden. The veil dropped, and Lady Ingram was herself again--her heart more rock than ever. It was in a particularly cold, hard voice that she spoke again.