It was strange: but for the first moment Isoult had not remembered either Esther or Robin. Two thoughts alone were present to her; that Mr Rose was taken, and that John was safe. Now the full sorrow broke on her.
“O Jack, Jack! our Robin!—and Esther, too!”
“Beloved,” said he, his voice trembling, “both are safe with Him who having died for His own that are in the world, loveth them unto the end. There shall not an hair of their heads perish. ‘Of them that thou gavest Me have I lost none.’”
“Who was the other that ’scaped them?”
“A man whose name I knew not,” said John. “Both we stood close to a great closet in the wall, and slid therein noiselessly on the Sheriff’s entering; and by the good providence of God, it never came in their heads to open that door. So when they all were gone, and the street quiet, we could go softly down the stairs, and win thence.”
“And where were Robin and Esther?”
“Esther was on the further side of the chamber, by Mistress Sheerson, and Robin stood near Rose at the other end thereof.”
“Was the service over?”
“No. Rose was in the act of giving the bread of the Lord’s Supper.”
Dr Thorpe asked all these questions, and more; Isoult could ask only one. “How shall I tell them?”