“What matter, so I had its better?”
“We will return to that. But first I have another thing to ask. You say you never wronged man to your knowledge. Have you always paid all your dues to Him that is above men?”
“I never robbed the Church of a penny!”
“There be other debts than pence, my daughter. Have you kept, to the best of your power, all the commandments of God?”
“In very deed I have.”
“You never worshipped any other God?”
“I never worshipped neither Jupiter nor Juno, nor Venus, nor Diana, nor Mars, nor Mercury.”
“That can I full readily believe. But as there be other debts than money, so there be other gods than Jupiter. Honoured you no man nor thing above God? Cared you alway more for His glory than for the fame of Marguerite of Flanders, or the comfort of Jean de Bretagne?”
“Marry, you come close!” said the Countess, with a laugh. “Fame and ease be not gods, good Father.”
“They be not God,” was the significant answer. “‘Ye are servants to him whom ye obey,’ saith the apostle, and man may obey other than his lawful master. Whatsoever you set, or suffer to set himself, in God’s place, that is your god. What has been your god, my daughter?”