Page:The black tulip (IA 10892334.2209.emory.edu).pdf/203

 On the one hand, separation became inevitable; Gryphus having, at the same time, surprised the secret of their love, and of their secret meetings.

On the other hand, all the hopes, on the fulfilment of which Cornelius Van Baerle had rested his ambition for the last seven years, were now crushed.

Rosa was one of those women who are dejected by trifles; but who, in great emergencies, are supplied by the misfortune itself with the energy for combating, or with the resources for remedying it.

She went to her room, and cast a last glance about her, to see whether she had not been mistaken, and whether the tulip was not stowed away in some corner, where it had escaped her notice. But she sought in vain; the tulip was still wanting; the tulip was indeed stolen.

Rosa made up a little parcel of things indispensable for a journey; took her three hundred guilders, that is to say, all her fortune; fetched the third sucker from among her lace, where she had laid it up, and carefully hid it in her bosom; after which she locked her door twice, to disguise her flight as long as possible; and, leaving the prison by the same door which an hour before had let out Boxtel, she went to a stable-keeper to hire a carriage.

The man had only a two-wheel chaise, and this was the vehicle which Boxtel had hired since last evening, and in which he was now driving along the road to Delft; for the road from Lœvestein to Haarlem, owing to the many canals, rivers, and rivulets intersecting the country, is exceedingly circuitous.

Not being able to procure a vehicle, Rosa was obliged to take a horse, with which the stable-keeper readily intrusted her, knowing her to be the daughter of the jailor of the fortress.