Page:The black tulip (IA 10892334.2209.emory.edu).pdf/158

 heaved a deep sigh—“watch over it, as a miser over his first or last piece of gold; as the mother over her child; as the wounded over the last drop of blood in his veins;—watch over it, Rosa! Some voice within me tells me that it will be our saving, that it will be a source of good to us.”

“Be easy, Mynheer Cornelius,” said Rosa, with a sweet mixture of melancholy and gravity; “be easy, your wishes are commands to me.”

“And even,” continued Van Baerle, warming more and more with his subject, “if you should perceive that your steps are watched, and that your speech has excited the suspicion of your father aud of that detestable Master Jacob: well, Rosa, don’t hesitate for one moment to sacrifice me, who am only still living through you; me, who have no one in the world but you; sacrifice me, don’t come to see me any more.”

Rosa felt lier leart sink within her, and her eyes were filling with tears.

“Alas!” she said.

“What is it?” asked Cornelius.

“I see one thing.”

“What do you see?”

“I see,” she said, bursting out in sobs, “I see, that you love your tulips with such love, as to have no more room in your heart left for other affections.”

Saying this, she fled.

Cornelius, after this, passed one of the worst nights lie ever had had in his life.

Rosa was vexed with him, and with good reason. Perhaps she would never return to see the prisoner, and then he would have no more news either of Rosa or of his tulips.

We have to confess, to the disgrace of our hero and of floriculture, that of his two affections he felt most