Poor Rosa! she no longer dared to call him “My beloved one.”
“You have then left it alone,” said Cornelius, ruefully.
“One minute only, to instruct our messenger, who lives scarcely fifty yards off, on the banks of the Waal.”
“And during that time, notwithstanding all my injunctions, you left the key behind, unfortunate child!”
“No, no, no! this is what I cannot understand. The key was never out of my hands; I clinched it as if I were afraid it would take wings.”
“But how did it happen, then?”
“That’s what I cannot make out. I had given the letter to my messenger; he started before I left his house; I came home, and my door was locked, everything in my room was as I had left it, except the tulip,—that was gone. Some one must have had a key for my room, or have got a false one made on purpose.”
She was nearly choking with sobs, and was unable to continue.
Cornelius, immovable and full of consternation, heard almost without understanding, and only muttered,—
“Stolen, stolen, and I am lost!”