Page:The black tulip (IA 10892334.2209.emory.edu).pdf/127

 “Hush! let us speak low; my father follows on my heels,” said the girl.

“Your father?”

“Yes, he is in the courtyard at the bottom of the staircase, receiving the instructions of the Governor; he will presently come up.”

“The instructions of the Governor?”

“Listen to me, I’ll try to tell you all in a few words. The Stadtholder has a country-house, one league distant from Leyden, properly speaking a kind of large dairy, and my aunt, who was his nurse, has the management of it. As soon as I received your letter, which, alas! I could not read myself, but which your housekeeper read to me, I hastened to my aunt; there I remained until the Prince should come to the dairy; and when he came, I asked him, as a favour, to allow my father to exchange his post at the prison of the Hague with the jailor of the fortress of Lœvestein. The Prince could not have suspected my object; had he known it, he would have refused my request, but, as it is, he granted it.”

“And so you are here?”

“As you see.”

“And thus I shall see you every day?”

“As often as I can manage it.”

“Oh, Rosa, my beautiful Rosa, do you love me a little?”

“A little?” she said; “you make no great pretensions, Mynheer Cornelius.”

Cornelius tenderly stretched out his hands towards her, but they were only able to touch each other with the tips of their fingers through the wire grating.

“Here is my father,” said she.

Rosa then abruptly drew back from the door, and ran to meet old Gryphus, who made his appearance at the top of the staircase.