“My oath let me keep him,” said Countess in a peculiar voice.
“Are you a widow?” responded Ermine pityingly.
“Very likely,” was the short, dry answer.
Ermine asked no more. “Poor Countess!” was all she said.
“Don’t pity me for that,” replied the Jewess. “You had better know. We quarrelled, Ermine, over the boy, and at my own request he divorced me, and let me go. It was an easy choice to make—gold and down cushions on the one hand, love and the oath of God upon the other. I never missed the down cushions; and I think the child found my breast as soft as they would have been. I sold my jewels, and set up a little shop. We have had the blessing of the Holy One, to whom be praise!”
“That is a Jewish way of talking, is it not?” said Stephen, smiling. “I thought you were a Catholic now.”
“I am a Christian. I know nothing about ‘Catholic’—unless the idols in the churches are Catholic, and with them I will have nought to do. Gerhardt never taught me to worship them, and Gerhardt’s book has never taught it either. I believe in the Lord my God, and His Son Jesus Christ, the Messiah of Israel: but these gilded vanities are abominations to me. Oh, why have ye Christian folk added your folly to God’s wisdom, and have held off the sons and daughters of Israel from faith in Messiah the King?”
“Ah, why, indeed!” echoed Ermine softly.
“Can you tell me anything of our old friends at Oxford?” asked Countess suddenly, after a moment’s pause.
“Yes, we heard of them from Leuesa, who married and came to live in London about six years ago,” said Stephen. “Your people were all well, Countess; your sister Regina has married Samuel, the nephew of your uncle Jurnet’s wife, and has a little family about her—one very pretty little maid, Leuesa told us, with eyes like yours.”