Naomi with great difficulty commanded her emotion, and complied with the request of Theophilus. They prayed to that Father who is never slow to hear and answer the supplications of his children; and when they rose from their knees it was with feelings of entire resignation, and almost of joy. Their discourse was soon interrupted by the entrance of the keeper of the prison, who desired Naomi to accompany him immediately, as the gates were about to be closed. A few parting words were all that could be uttered; and Naomi followed her guide through the long and gloomy passages that led to the entrance of the prison, while the tears which she had struggled to repress while in the presence of her cousin, now flowed unchecked. Her admiration of his faith and his humility, his tender regard for the feelings of his friends, and his heroic resolution to bear the cross which was laid upon him, only made her regret still more deeply that he should be thus cut off in the flower of his days, and taken away from those who loved him so dearly, and to whom his life was in every way so valuable. It was one of those mysterious dispensations of an All-wise Providence which our understandings cannot fathom, and in which it becomes us in humble faith to say with the Psalmist, "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, for it was thy doing." Zadok had accompanied his daughter to the prison, and with several of his attendants he now waited for her in the porch. The state of the city was not such as to admit of any person traversing the streets alone and unprotected, after the shades of night had spread a veil over the sin and violence that continually defiled that once holy place; and Zadok also felt a vague apprehension that the same persons who had so successfully conspired against Theophilus, might also seek to rob him of his beloved child. He therefore had watched and guarded her with redoubled care ever since her conversion to Christianity had become more generally known; and both he and Salome lived in constant dread of a calamity which they felt would be the death-blow to all their earthly happiness.