“Laugh,” exclaimed Rosa, frantic with grief, “laugh, at this moment! but do you not see my tears?”
“Rosa, you are no stranger to me. I have not seen much of you, but that little is enough to make me appreciate your character. I have never seen a woman more fair or more pure than you are, and if from this moment I take no more notice of you, forgive me; it is only because, on leaving this world, I do not wish to have any further regret.”
Rosa felt a shudder creeping over her frame, for, whilst the prisoner pronounced these words, the belfry clock of the Buitenhof struck eleven.
Cornelius understood her. “Yes, yes, let us make haste,” he said, “you are right, Rosa.”
Then, taking the paper with the three suckers from his breast, where he had again put it, since he had no longer any fear of being searched, he said, “My dear girl, I have been very fond of flowers. That was at a time when I did not know that there was anything else to be loved. Don’t blush, Rosa, nor turn away; and even if I were making you a declaration of love, alas! poor dear, it would be of no more consequence. Down there in the yard, there is an instrument of steel, which in sixty minutes will put an end to my boldness. Well, Rosa, I loved flowers dearly, and I have found, or at least I believe so, the secret of the grand black tulip, which it has been considered impossible to grow, and for which, as you know, or may not know, a prize of a hundred thousand guilders has been offered by the Horticultural Society of Haarlem. These hundred thousand guilders—and heaven knows, I do not regret them—these hundred thousand guilders I have here in this paper; for they are won by the three bulbs wrapped up in it, which you may take Rosa, as I make you a present of them.”
