To Emily, Conscience meant something very different. She was still only half aware of that secret criterion within her: but was terrified of it. She had not Rachel’s clear divination: she never knew when she might offend this inner harpy, Conscience, unwittingly: and lived in terror of those brazen claws, should she ever let it be hatched from the egg. When she felt its latent strength stir in its prenatal sleep, she forced her mind to other things, and would not even let herself recognise her fear of it. But she knew, at the bottom of her heart she knew , that one day some action of hers would rouse it, something awful done quite unwittingly would send it raging round her soul like a whirlwind. She might go weeks together in a happy unconsciousness, she might have flashes of vision when she knew she was God Himself: but at the same time she knew, beyond all doubt, in her innermost being, that she was damned, that there never had been anyone as wicked as her since the world began.