Page:The black tulip (IA 10892334.2209.emory.edu).pdf/167

 your note. Accordingly I am come to see whether there might not be some remedy to restore you to health.”

“Restore me to health?” cried Cornelius; “but have you any good news to communicate to me?”

Saying this, the poor prisoner looked at Rosa, his eyes sparkling with hope.

Whether she did not, or would not, understand this look, Rosa answered gravely,—

“I have only to speak to you about your tulip, which, as I well know, is the object uppermost in your mind.”

Rosa pronounced these 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 allowed himself to be caught in the trap, if ever the remark was meant as such.

“Danger!” he cried, quite alarmed, “what dauger?”

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.” L2