The want of this sensation at certain periods--especially at night--would send a chill thrill of desolation through him like a wave; a wild panic, a quick agony, as though the true meaning of absolute loneliness were suddenly realized by a lightning flash of insight, and it were to last for ever and ever. This would pass away in a second or two, but left a haunting recollection behind for many hours. And then all was again sunshine, and the world was made of many friends--and solitude was impossible evermore. One memorable morning this happiness received a check and a great horror befell him. It was towards the end of summer--just before the vacation. With a dozen others, he was painting the head of an old man from the life, when he became quite suddenly conscious of something strange in his sight. First he shut his left eye and saw with his right quite perfectly; then he shut the right, and lo! whatever he looked at with the left dwindled to a vanishing point and became invisible. No rubbing or bathing of his eye would alter the terrible fact, and he knew what great fear really means, for the first time. Much kind concern was expressed, and Van Lerius told him to go at once to a Monsieur Noiret, a professor at the Catholic University of Louvain, who had attended _him_ for the eyes, and had the reputation of being the first oculist in Belgium. Barty wrote immediately and an appointment was made, and in three days he saw the great man, half professor, half priest, who took him into a dark chamber lighted by a lamp, and dilated his pupil with atropine, and looked into his eye with the newly discovered "ophthalmoscope." Professor Noiret told him it was merely a congestion of the retina--for which no cause could be assigned; and that he would be cured in less than a month. That he was to have a seton let into the back of his neck, dry-cup himself on the chest and thighs night and morning, and take a preparation of mercury three times a day. Also that he must go to the seaside immediately--and he recommended Ostend. Barty told him that he was an impecunious art student, and that Ostend was a very expensive place. Noiret considerately recommended Blankenberghe, which was cheap; asked for and took his full fee, and said, with a courtly priestly bow: "If you are not cured, come back in a month. _Au revoir!_" So poor Barty had the seton put in by a kind of barber-surgeon, and was told how to dress it night and morning; got his medicines and his dry-cupping apparatus, and went off to Blankenberghe quite hopeful. And there things happened to him which I really think are worth telling; in the first place, because, even if they did not concern Barty Josselin, they should be amusing for their own sake--that is, if I could only tell them as he told me afterwards; and I will do my best!