"What else?" The question was asked in passionate tones, and the dark flashing eyes went longingly across the valley to the Alport heights. "I would have my life back again," she said. "I have not had a fair chance. I have done with my life not that I willed, but only that which others gave leave for me to do. Six and twenty years have I been tethered, and fretted, and limited, granted only the semblance of power, the picture of life, and thrust and pulled back whensoever I strained in the least at the leash wherein I was held. No dog has been more penned up and chained than I! And now, for eight years have I been cabined in one chamber, shut up from the very air of heaven whereunto God made all men free--shut up from every face that I knew and loved, saving one of mine ancient waiting-maids--verily, if they would use me worser than so, they shall be hard put to it, save to thrust me into my coffin and fasten down the lid on me. I want my life back again! I want the bright harvest of my youth, which these slugs and maggots have devoured, which I never had. I want the bloom of my dead happiness which men tare away from me. I want my dead lord, and mine estranged children, and my lost life! Tell me, has God no treasury whence He pays compensation for such wrongs as mine? Must I never see my little child again, the baby lad that clung to me and would not see me weep? My pillow is wet now, and no man careth for it--nay, nor God Himself. I was alway true woman; I never wronged human soul, that I know. I paid my dues, and shrived me clean, and lived honestly. Wherefore is all this come upon me?" "Lady Marguerite, if you lost a penny and gained a gold noble, would you think you were repaid the loss or no?" "In very deed I should," the sick woman replied, languidly; the fire had spent itself in that outburst, and the embers had little warmth left in them. "Yet," said the Archbishop, significantly, "you would not have won the lost thing back." "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."