es away to avoid my father's look; but I met those of
Jacob.

"It was as if he had tried to read my thoughts at the bottom of my
heart.

"Some little show of anger sometimes saves an answer. I shrugged my
shoulders, turned my back, and advanced towards the door.

"But I was kept by something which I heard, although it was uttered in a
very low voice only.

"Jacob said to my father,--

"'It would not be so difficult to ascertain that.'

"'How so?'

"'You need only search his person: and if he has the other bulbs, we
shall find them, as there usually are three suckers!'"

"Three suckers!" cried Cornelius. "Did you say that I have three?"

"The word certainly struck me just as much as it does you. I turned
round. They were both of them so deeply engaged in their conversation
that they did not observe my movement.

"'But,' said my father, 'perhaps he has not got his bulbs about him?'

"'Then take him down, under some pretext or other and I will search his
cell in the meanwhile.'"

"Halloa, halloa!" said Cornelius. "But this Mr. Jacob of yours is a
villain, it seems."

"I am afraid he is."

"Tell me, Rosa," continued Cornelius, with a pensive air.

"What?"

"Did you not tell me that on the day when you prepared your borders this
man followed you?"

"So he did."

"That he glided like a shadow behind the elder trees?"

"Certainly."

"That not one of your movements escaped him?"

"Not one, indeed."

"Rosa," said Cornelius, growing quite pale.

"Well?"

"It was not you he was after."

"Who else, then?"

"It is not you that he was in love with!"

"But with whom else?"

"He was after my bulb, and is in love with my tulip!"

"You don't say so! And yet it is very possible," said Rosa.

"Will you make sure of it?"

"In what manner?"

"Oh, it would be very easy!"

"Tell me."

"Go to-morrow into the garden; manage matters so that Jacob may know, as
he did the first time, that you are going there, and that he may follow
you. Feign to put the bulb into the ground; leave the garden, but look
through the keyhole of the door and watch him."

"Well, and what then?"

"What then? We shall do as he does."

"Oh!" said Rosa, with a sigh, "you are very fond of your bulbs."

"To tell the truth," said the prisoner, sighing likewise, "since your
father crushed that unfortunate bulb, I feel as if part of my own self
had been paralyzed."

"Now just hear me," said Rosa; "will you try something else