ery angry with him for giving himself away in this
"idiotically quixotic manner."

Besides which, Colonel Lecornu was a notorious bully, it seems; and
a fool into the bargain; and belonged to a branch of the service
they detested.

The only other thing worth mentioning is that Barty and Father Louis
became great friends--almost inseparable during such hours as the
Dominican could spare from the duties of his professorate.

It speaks volumes for all that was good in each of them that this
should have been so, since they were wide apart as the poles in
questions of immense moment: questions on which I will not enlarge,
strongly as I feel about them myself--for this is not a novel, but a
biography, and therefore no fit place for the airing of one's own
opinion on matters so grave and important.

When they parted they constantly wrote to each other--an intimate
correspondence that was only ended by the Father's death.

Barty also made one or two other friends in Malines, and was often
in Antwerp and Brussels, but seldom, for more than a few hours, as
he did not like to leave his aunt alone.

One day came, in April, on which she had to leave him.

[Illustration: SO NEAR AND YET SO FAR]

A message arrived that her father, the old Marquis (Barty's
grandfather), was at the point of death. He was ninety-six. He had
expressed a wish to see her once more, although he had long been
childish.

So Barty saw her off, with her maid, by the _Baron Osy_. She
promised to be back as soon as all was over. Even this short parting
was a pain--they had grown so indispensable to each other.

Tescheles was away from Antwerp, and the disconsolate Barty went
back to Malines and dined by himself; and little Frau waited on him
with extra care.

It turned out that her mother had cooked for him a special dish of
consolation--sausage-meat stewed inside a red cabbage, with apples
and cloves, till it all gets mixed up. It is a dish not to be beaten
when you are young and Flemish and hungry and happy and well (even
then you mustn't take more than one helping). When you are not all
this it is good to wash it down with half a bottle of the best
Burgundy--and this Barty did (from Vougeot-Conti and Co.).

Then he went out and wandered about in the dark and lost himself in
a dreamy daedalus of little streets and bridges and canals and
ditches. A huge comet (Encke's, I believe) was flaring all over the
sky.

He suddenly came across the lighted