“Esther, dear heart!” she cried, gladly, “I never was more fain to see a face than thine 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, chère soeur” and besought her to call her Marguerite.