“I should think not! Of course you stick by the church!”
“Never mind the church. She's not my mistress, though I am her servant. God is my master, and I tell you he is as good and fair as goodness and fairness can be goodness and fairness!”
“What! Will you drive me mad! I wish he would serve you as he's done me—then we should hear another tune—rather! You call it good—you call it fair, to take from a poor creature he made himself, the one only thing she cared for?”
“Which was the cause of a strife that made of a family in which he wanted to live, a very hell upon earth!”
“You dare!” she cried, starting to her feet.
Wingfold did not move.
“Mrs. Wylder,” he said, “dare is a word that needn't be used again between you and me. If you dare tell God that he is a devil, I may well dare tell you that you know nothing about him, and that I do!”
“Say on your honour, then, if he had treated you as he has done me—taken from you the light of your eyes, would you count it fair? Speak like the man you are.”
“I know I should.”
“I don't believe you. And I won't worship him.”