Page:The black tulip (IA 10892334.2209.emory.edu).pdf/246

 John and his brother Cornelius met with such an awful death.”

The Prince compressed his lips and knit his brow, and his eyelids dropped so as to hide his eyes for an instant. After a momentary silence, he resumed the conversation.

“But to what can it lead to love a man who is doomed to live and die in prison?”

“It will lead, if he lives and dies in prison, to my aiding him in life and in death.”

And would you accept the lot of being the wife of a prisoner?”

“As the wife of Mynheer Van Baerle, I should, under any circumstances, be the proudest and happiest woman in the world; but”

“But, what?”

“I dare not say, Monseigneur.”

“There is something like hope in your tone—what do you hope?”

She raised her moist and beautiful eyes, and looked at William with a glance full of meaning, which was calculated to stir up in the recesses of his heart the clemency which was slumbering there.

“Ah! I understand you,” he said.

Rosa, with a smile, clasped her hands.

“You hope in me?” said the Prince.

“Yes, Monseigneur.”

“Umph!”

The Prince sealed the letter which he had just written, and summoned one of his officers, to whom he said,—

“Captain Van Decken, carry this despatch to Lœvestein; you will read the orders which I give to the Governor, and execute them as far as they regard you.”

The officer bowed, and, a few minutes afterwards, the gallop of a horse was heard resounding in the vaulted archway.

“My child,” continued the Prince, the feast of the tulip will be on Sunday next, that is to say, the day