e 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 showed himself clearly to be
caught in the trap, if ever the remark was meant as such.

"Danger!" he cried, quite alarmed; "what danger?"

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."

"And what did he come for?" Cornelius anxiously asked.

"He came for the sake of the tulip."

"Alas!" said Cornelius, growing even paler at this piece of information
than he had been when Rosa, a fortnight before, had told him that Jacob
was coming for her sake.

Rosa saw this alarm, and Cornelius guessed, from the expression of her
face, in what direction her thoughts were running.

"Oh, pardon me, Rosa!" he said, "I know you, and I am well aware of the
kindness and sincerity of your heart. To you God has given the thought
and strength for defending yourself; but to my poor tulip, when it is in
danger, God has given nothing of the sort."

Rosa, without replying to this excuse of the prisoner, continued,--

"From the moment when I first knew that you were uneasy on account of
the man who followed me, and in whom I had recognized Jacob, I was even
more uneasy myself. On the day, therefore, after that on which I saw you
last, and on which you said--"

Cornelius interrupted her.

"Once more, pardon me, Rosa!" he cried. "I was wrong in saying to
you what I said. I have asked your pardon for that unfortunate speech
before. I ask it again: shall I always ask it in vain?"

"On the following day," Rosa continued, "remembering what you had told
me about the stratagem which I was to employ to ascertain whether that
odious man was after the tulip, or after me----"

"Yes, yes, odious. Tell me," he said, "do you hate that man?"

"I do hate him," said Rosa, "as he is the cause of all the unhappiness I
have suffered these eight days."

"You, too, have been unhappy, Rosa? I thank you a thousand times for
this kind confession."

"Well, on the day after that unfortunate one, I went down into the
garden and proceeded towards the border where I was to plant your tulip,
looking round all the while to see whe