“I fear me there is something worse in them than that, Eustace,” said Bride, looking out before her with that luminous gaze he often noticed in her, which suggested a mind moving in a sphere above that of the common earth. “It is the work of something more than blind ignorance. It is the work of the devil himself. The powers many of these witches exert is something beyond what any mere trickery can account for. There is an agency beyond anything of that sort--it is the devil who endows these miserable beings with powers above those of their fellows. God have mercy on the souls of such! For in an evil hour, and for the hope of worldly gain, they have placed their neck beneath an awful yoke, and God alone knows whether for such there can be pardon and restoration!” Eustace listened in silent amazement. He knew that gross superstition reigned amongst the degraded and ignorant; but he had always believed that it was confined to them, and that those who had enjoyed the advantages of education were far above anything so credulous as a belief in a personal devil working through the medium of men. It was an age when materialism and rationalism in one form or another stalked triumphantly over the earth. Spirituality was at a low ebb; the Catholic revival was in its infancy. The wave of earnestness and spiritual light which had been awakened by Wesley had dwindled and spent itself, leaving many traces behind of piety and zeal, but without accomplishing that work of awakening its founders had hoped to do. The Court set a bad example; the people followed it more or less. It was an age of laxity both in morals and in thought; but the prevailing tone of ordinary men was one of condescending scepticism--tolerating religion, but believing that a new era was coming upon the world in which Christianity should be superseded by “natural religion”--a thing far purer and higher in the estimation of its devotees. That the world was evil, and in the greatest need of reform, Eustace would be the last man to deny; but to refer the gross superstitions of a benighted peasantry to the direct agency of a personal devil savoured to his mind of utter childishness, although possibly it was not more logically untenable than a belief in a personal Saviour, from whom proceeded all holy impulses, all elevating and pardoning love, all earnest searchings after the higher life. But if he was equally sceptical on both of these points, he would fain have gauged the soul of his companion, being keenly interested, not only in herself, but in every aspect of thought as it presented itself to minds of different calibre. “You mean that you still believe in a certain devil-possession?” he asked tentatively; and Bride turned upon him one long inscrutable glance as she answered, after a long pause--