And Nele, without a word of greeting, flung her arms round his neck. And she also seemed like one bereft of sense. For she cried and laughed, and blushing as she was with her great and sweet happiness, she could only say: "Tyl! Tyl!" Ulenspiegel, happy now in his turn, gazed into her eyes. Then she let go of him and stepped back a pace or two, gazed at him joyfully in her turn, and then threw herself on him again, clasping her arms round his neck, and so many times and again. And he suffered her gladly, powerless to tear himself away from her, till at last she fell into a chair, tired out and like one bereft of her senses, and she said without shame: "Tyl! Tyl, my beloved! Here you are come back to me again!" Lamme meanwhile was standing at the door; but when Nele had recovered herself a little, she pointed to him, saying: "Where have I seen this fat man?" "He is my friend," Ulenspiegel told her. "He goes seeking his wife in my company." "I know you," said Nele to Lamme. "You used to live in the rue Héron. You are seeking for your wife? Well, I have seen her. She is living at Bruges in all piety and devotion, and when I asked her why she had left her husband so unkindly, she answered that it was by the Holy Will of God and at the command of Holy Penance, and that she could never live with her husband again." At these words Lamme was sad, but his eyes wandered to the beans and vinegar. And outside the larks sang as they flew upwards into the sky, and all Nature swooned away under the caress of her Lord the Sun. And Katheline kept stirring with her spoon that pot of beans and sauce. XXV Now, in those days a damsel some fifteen years of age was going from Heyst to Knokke, alone in the middle of the day, by the sand-dunes. No one had any fear for her for they knew that the wolves and wicked spirits of the damned go biting their victims only in the night. The damsel carried a satchel wherein were forty-eight gold coins of the value of four florins carolus, being the sum owed by the girl's mother, Toria Pieterson, who lived at Heyst, to her uncle, Jan Rapen of Knokke, on account of a sale. The girl's name was Betkin, and she was wearing her best clothes, and she went on her way most happily. The same evening, seeing that she did not return, her mother became anxious, but reassured herself with the thought that the girl must have stayed the night with her uncle.