Morning came; the day passed on and the evening also, and again he heard the shrill trumpets pealing out tattoo in the echoing square of the artillery barracks; and many days and nights followed each other, till he was well-nigh mad with exasperation and anxiety, but no token came of release or further examination. If some absurd or misleading paragraph appeared in the Belgian papers, and from these found its way into the English journals, what strange views of his predicament might not be taken by his friends and the military authorities at home! But the Belgian police, like other similar forces on the Continent, are very reticent with reference to their own movements and affairs; and, as yet, they prevented him from communicating with our consul at Antwerp, our ambassador at Brussels, or by letter with his solicitors, Messrs. Taype, Shawrpe, & Scrawly, Gray's Inn Square, the presence of one of whom in Antwerp might have proved of vast service to him just then. So the weary days passed on, and Bevil Goring thought with truth that he would have cause to remember long the bitter coffee and onion soup--or _soupe-maigre_--and the _Ratatouil_, Flemish for a ragout made of scraps of meat, during his enforced abode in the Rue des Beguines! CHAPTER XVII. ENNUI AND WEARINESS. But for her love for Bevil Goring, Alison felt at times that she would have sacrificed herself for her father. Selfish and coldly proud though his nature was, still he was her father, and she was his last link to earth--the last link of that long chain of ancestors he prized so much, and who went back to the years of the War of Independence, and beyond them. Yes--out of pity for him she might have sacrificed herself to Cadbury; but now the image of Bevil Goring rendered that impossible, and even death itself preferable. Poor girl! moped in that great dull hotel, she wearied sorely. Her father was kind to her after a fashion of his own, but she longed regretfully for the past time when she could throw her arms around her mother's neck and lay her head upon her breast--the panacea for all young folks whose troubles seem overwhelming; but what were the troubles that beset her when that dear mother was alive, compared with those that beset her now? And with regard to these, she knew what that mother's advice would have been:--'Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.' My Lord Cadbury was rather tiring, or getting exasperated by the slow success of his love affair, and was beginning to think seriously of how he would separate Alison from her 'bore of a father,' and get her alone with him, perhaps to Brussels, where his rascal Gaskins would easily procure him apartments.