ornelius is as little
guilty of the second crime imputed to him as he was of the first."

"Of the first? And do you know what was his first crime? Do you know
of what he was accused and convicted? Of having, as an accomplice of
Cornelius de Witt, concealed the correspondence of the Grand Pensionary
and the Marquis de Louvois."

"Well, sir, he was ignorant of this correspondence being deposited with
him; completely ignorant. I am as certain as of my life, that, if it
were not so, he would have told me; for how could that pure mind have
harboured a secret without revealing it to me? No, no, your Highness, I
repeat it, and even at the risk of incurring your displeasure, Cornelius
is no more guilty of the first crime than of the second; and of the
second no more than of the first. Oh, would to Heaven that you knew my
Cornelius; Monseigneur!"

"He is a De Witt!" cried Boxtel. "His Highness knows only too much of
him, having once granted him his life."

"Silence!" said the Prince; "all these affairs of state, as I have
already said, are completely out of the province of the Horticultural
Society of Haarlem."

Then, knitting his brow, he added,--

"As to the tulip, make yourself easy, Master Boxtel, you shall have
justice done to you."

Boxtel bowed with a heart full of joy, and received the congratulations
of the President.

"You, my child," William of Orange continued, "you were going to commit
a crime. I will not punish you; but the real evil-doer shall pay the
penalty for both. A man of his name may be a conspirator, and even a
traitor, but he ought not to be a thief."

"A thief!" cried Rosa. "Cornelius a thief? Pray, your Highness, do not
say such a word, it would kill him, if he knew it. If theft there has
been, I swear to you, Sir, no one else but this man has committed it."

"Prove it," Boxtel coolly remarked.

"I shall prove it. With God's help I shall."

Then, turning towards Boxtel, she asked,--

"The tulip is yours?"

"It is."

"How many bulbs were there of it?"

Boxtel hesitated for a moment, but after a short consideration he came
to the conclusion that she would not ask this question if there were
none besides the two bulbs of which he had known already. He therefore
answered,--

"Three."

"What has become of these bulbs?"

"Oh! what has become of them? Well, one has failed; the second has
produced the black tulip."

"And the third?"

"The third!"

"The third,--where is it?"

"I