The second bulb, planted by me, has produced the black tulip, and the third and last"-- saying this, she drew it from her bosom--"here it is, in the very same paper in which it was wrapped up together with the two others.

When about to be led to the scaffold, Cornelius van Baerle gave me all the three.

Take it, Monseigneur, take it." And Rosa, unfolding the paper, offered the bulb to the Prince, who took it from her hands and examined it.
"But, Monseigneur, this young woman may have stolen the bulb, as she did the tulip," Boxtel said, with a faltering voice, and evidently alarmed at the attention with which the Prince examined the bulb; and even more at the movements of Rosa, who was reading some lines written on the paper which remained in her hands.
Her eyes suddenly lighted up; she read, with breathless anxiety, the mysterious paper over and over again; and at last, uttering a cry, held it out to the Prince and said, "Read, Monseigneur, for Heaven's sake, read!" William handed the third bulb to Van Systens, took the paper, and read.
No sooner had he looked at it than he began to stagger; his hand trembled, and very nearly let the paper fall to the ground; and the expression of pain and compassion in his features was really frightful to see.
It was that fly-leaf, taken from the Bible, which Cornelius de Witt had sent to Dort by Craeke, the servant of his brother John, to request Van Baerle to burn the correspondence of the Grand Pensionary with the Marquis de Louvois.
This request, as the reader may remember, was couched in the following terms:-- "My Dear Godson,-- "Burn the parcel which I have intrusted to you.

Burn it without looking at it, and without opening it, so that its contents may for ever remain unknown to yourself.

Secrets of this description are death to those with whom they are deposited.