“You cannot this time excuse yourself with not being able to read. Not only do you read very fluently, but also you have made marvellous progress in writing.”
“Indeed, I have not only received, but also read your note. Accordingly I am come to see whether there might not be some remedy to restore you to health.”
“Restore me to health?” cried Cornelius; “but have you any good news to communicate to me?”
Saying this, the poor prisoner looked at Rosa, his eyes sparkling with hope.
Whether she did not, or would not, understand this look, Rosa answered gravely,—
“I have only to speak to you about your tulip, which, as I well know, is the object uppermost in your mind.”
Rosa pronounced those few words in a freezing tone, which cut deeply into the heart of Cornelius. He did not suspect what lay hidden under this appearance of indifference with which the poor girl affected to speak of her rival, the black tulip.
“Oh!” muttered Cornelius, “again! again! Have I not told you, Rosa, that I thought but of you? that it was you alone whom I regretted, you whom I missed, you whose 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.”