Thus Rosa, being at liberty, found in her own will the force not to come and see him, who was dying with grief at not having seen her.
Cornelius had paper and a pencil which Rosa had brought to him.

He guessed that she expected an answer, but that she would not come before the evening to fetch it.

He therefore wrote on a piece of paper, similar to that which he had received,-- "It was not my anxiety about the tulip that has made me ill, but the grief at not seeing you." After Gryphus had made his last visit of the day, and darkness had set in, he slipped the paper under the door, and listened with the most intense attention, but he neither heard Rosa's footsteps nor the rustling of her gown.
He only heard a voice as feeble as a breath, and gentle like a caress, which whispered through the grated little window in the door the word,-- "To-morrow!" Now to-morrow was the eighth day.

For eight days Cornelius and Rosa had not seen each other..