er second name, but the name is
always a colour: in one town the hero runs away with her as Mary
Grey, in another as Mary Green. Thus as a girl Gilbert had seen
Frances in green and had understood why green trees and fields are
beautiful; had seen her in grey and had learnt a new love for grey
winter days, and the grey robes of palmers; and in blue--

Then saw I how the fashioner
Splashed reckless blue on sky and sea
And ere 'twas good enough for her
He tried it on eternity.

When they came back from Jerusalem Gilbert dedicated to Frances the
_Ballad of St. Barbara_ and we find him again at his old trick:
seeing as her throne the great stones of the mediaeval walls, seeing
nature as her background. With all apologies to the cynics I am
afraid that the judgment of the biographer upon all the evidence must
be that after twenty-five years Gilbert not only loved his wife
tenderly, but was still ardently in love with her!

A curious prayer of his youth was fulfilled as they celebrated this
year their silver wedding.

A wan new garment of young green,
Touched as you turned your soft brown hair;
And in me surged the strangest prayer
Ever in lover's heart hath been.

That I who saw your youth's bright page,
A rainbow change from robe to robe,
Might see you on this earthly globe,
Crowned with the silver crown of age.

Your dear hair powdered in strange guise,
Your dear face touched with colours pale,
And gazing through the mask and veil
The mirth of your immortal eyes.*

[* "The Last Masquerade," _Collected Poems_, pp. 348-9.]

Four years earlier Frances had aided Gilbert in making the decision
for which she was not yet herself ready, to do the act which he
called "the most difficult of all my acts of freedom." And indeed
much of that freedom of full manhood he owed to her.

Now after four years of waiting she was almost ready to join him. She
wrote to Father O'Connor:

June 20 [1926]

DEAR PADRE--

I want now, as soon as I can see a few days clear before me to
place myself under instruction to enter the Church. The whole
position is full of difficulties and I pray you Padre to tell me the
first step to take. I _don't_ want my instruction to be here. I don't
want to be the talk of Beaconsfield and for people to say I've only
followed Gilbert. It isn't true and I've had a hard fight not to let
my love for him lead me to the truth. I kn