“I have only to speak to you about your tulip, which, as I well know, is the object uppermost in your mind.” Rosa pronounced those few words in a freezing tone, which cut deeply into the heart of Cornelius. He did not suspect what lay hidden under this appearance of indifference with which the poor girl affected to speak of her rival, the black tulip. “Oh!” muttered Cornelius, “again! again! Have I not told you, Rosa, that I thought but of you? that it was you alone whom I regretted, you whom I missed, you whose absence I felt more than the loss of liberty and of life itself?” Rosa smiled with a melancholy air. “Ah!” she said, “your tulip has been in such danger.” Cornelius trembled involuntarily, and showed himself clearly to be caught in the trap, if ever the remark was meant as such. “Danger!” he cried, quite alarmed; “what danger?” Rosa looked at him with gentle compassion; she felt that what she wished was beyond the power of this man, and that he must be taken as he was, with his little foible. “Yes,” she said, “you have guessed the truth; that suitor and amorous swain, Jacob, did not come on my account.” “And what did he come for?” Cornelius anxiously asked. “He came for the sake of the tulip.” “Alas!” said Cornelius, growing even paler at this piece of information than he had been when Rosa, a fortnight before, had told him that Jacob was coming for her sake. Rosa saw this alarm, and Cornelius guessed, from the expression of her face, in what direction her thoughts were running. “Oh, pardon me, Rosa!” he said, “I know you, and I am well aware of the kindness and sincerity of your heart. To you God has given the thought and strength for defending yourself; but to my poor tulip, when it is in danger, God has given nothing of the sort.” Rosa, without replying to this excuse of the prisoner, continued,-- “From the moment when I first knew that you were uneasy on account of the man who followed me, and in whom I had recognized Jacob, I was even more uneasy myself. On the day, therefore, after that on which I saw you last, and on which you said--” Cornelius interrupted her. “Once more, pardon me, Rosa!” he cried. “I was wrong in saying to you what I said. I have asked your pardon for that unfortunate speech before. I ask it again: shall I always ask it in vain?” “On the following day,” Rosa continued, “remembering what you had told me about the stratagem which I was to employ to ascertain whether that odious man was after the tulip, or after me----” “Yes, yes, odious. Tell me,” he said, “do you hate that man?” “I do hate him,” said Rosa, “as he is the cause of all the unhappiness I have suffered these eight days.” “You, too, have been unhappy, Rosa? I thank you a thousand times for this kind confession.”