Fragments from Augustina's talk at Folkestone came back to her. Once she
had overheard some half-whispered conversation between her stepmother and
a Catholic friend, from which she had vaguely understood that the
"Blessed Sacrament" was kept in the Catholic churches, was always there,
and that the faithful "visited" it--that these "visits" were indeed
specially recommended as a means to holiness. And she recalled how, as
they came home from their daily walk to the beach, Mrs. Fountain would
disappear from her, through the shadowy door of a Catholic church that
stood in the same street as their lodgings--how she would come home half
an hour afterwards, shaken with fresh ardours, fresh remorse.

But how could such a thing be allowed, be possible, in a private
chapel--in a room that was really part of a private house? GOD--the
Christ of Calvary--in that gilt box, upon that altar!

The young girl's arms fell by her side in a sudden rigidity. A wave of
the most passionate repulsion swept through her. What a gross, what an
intolerable superstition!--how was she to live with it, beside it? The
next instant it was as though her hand clasped her father's--clinging to
him proudly, against this alien world. Why should she feel lonely?--the
little heretic, left standing there alone in her distant corner. Let her
rather rejoice that she was her father's daughter!

She drew herself up, and coolly looked about her. The worshippers had
risen; long as the time had seemed to Laura, they had only been two or
three minutes on their knees; and she could see that Augustina was
talking eagerly to her brother, pointing now to the walls, now to the
altar.

It seemed as though Augustina were no less astonished than her