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Page 118
"What I wish to say, your Highness, is that Cornelius 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 have it at home," said Boxtel, quite confused.
"At home? Where? At Loewestein, or at Dort?"
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