hine this morrow."

She lifted her head and smiled. Ay, certainly it was Esther.

"But how earnest thou safe?" asked Isoult.

"`Is any thing too hard for the Lord?'" she answered, in her soft,
measured voice. "There were more prisoners than Sheriff's men, and not
enough rope to tie us all together; so they marched some of the women
last, and untied. And while we went through a dark alley, I took mine
opportunity to slip aside into a doorway, the door standing open, and
there lay I hidden for some hours; and in the midst of the night, ere
dawn brake, I crept thence, and gat me to the house of my friend
Mistress Little, that I knew would be stirring, by reason that her son
was sick: and I rapping on her door and calling to her, she knew my
voice, and let me within. So there I abode till the gate was opened;
and then coming home, Mrs Thekla saw me from her window, and opened to
me, not many minutes since."

"I thank God, that saved thee!" cried Isoult. "Now, Esther, is there
any likelihood of Robin escaping likewise?"

"Yes," she said quietly, "if it shall be good in the eyes of the Blessed
to work a miracle to that end."

"But no otherwise?" wailed Isoult.

"Not, I think, with aught less," answered she. "They tied him and Mr
Rose together, and marched them first, the Sheriff himself guarding
them."

Even in this agony there was cause for thankfulness. Mrs Holland was
not there, nor Mr Underhill and his wife, nor Mr Ive and Helen, nor Mr
Ferris.

When the evening came, Isoult went up to Mrs Rose. She found her, as
Thekla said, _awake_ now, and bemoaning herself bitterly. Yet the
deepest part of her anguish seemed to be that she was left behind. She
flung her arms around her friend's neck, weeping aloud, and spoke to her
in French (which, or Spanish, she used when her heart was moved),
calling her "_Isoude, chere soeur_" and besought her to call her
Marguerite.

"I am so alone now," she sobbed; "it should make me to feel as though I
had yet a sister."

There was no change in Thekla, nor any tears from her. The next day,
the Lord sent them comfort, in the person of Austin Bernher, who came
straight from his good work, and told them that he had seen all the
prisoners. Mr Rose, they heard with heavy hearts, was in the Tower; a
sure omen that he was accounted a prisoner of importance, and he was the
less likely to be released. Robin was in the Marshalsea: both sent from
the Clink, where they were det