things in bald
words. The most I can say is that I know Frances like the back of my
hand and can tell without a word from her that she has never
recovered from a wound* and that there is only one kind of peace that
will heal it.

[* Gertrude's death.]

I have tried to explain myself in this letter: I can do it better
in a letter, somehow, but I do not think I have done it very
successfully. However, with you it does not matter and it never will
matter, how my thoughts come tumbling out. You at least have always
understood what I meant.

Always your loving son,

GILBERT.

CHAPTER XI

Married Life in London

_The suburbs are commonly referred to as prosaic. That is a matter of
taste. Personally I find them intoxicating_.

Introduction to _Literary London_.

THE WEDDING DAY drew near and the presents were pouring in.

"I feel like the young man in the Gospel," said Gilbert to Annie
Firmin, "sorrowful, because I have great possessions."

Conrad Noel married Gilbert and Frances at Kensington Parish Church
on June 28, 1901. As Gilbert knelt down the price ticket on the sole
of one of his new shoes became plainly visible. Annie caught Mrs.
Chesterton's eye and they began to laugh helplessly. Annie thinks,
too, that for once in their lives Gilbert and Cecil did not argue at
the Reception.

Lucian Oldershaw drove ahead to the station with the heavy luggage,
put it on the train and waited feverishly. That train went off (with
the luggage), then another, and at last the happy couple appeared.
Gilbert had felt it necessary to stop on the way "in order to drink a
glass of milk in one shop and to buy a revolver with cartridges in
another." The milk he drank because in childhood his mother used to
give him a glass in that shop. The revolver was for the defense of
his bride against possible dangers. They followed the luggage by a
slow train.

This love of weapons, his revolver, his favourite sword-stick,
remained with him all his life. It suggested the adventures that he
always bestowed on the heroes of his stories and would himself have
loved to experience. He noted in _Twelve Types_ Scott's love of armour
and of weapons for their own sakes--the texture, the power, the
beauty of a sword-hilt or a jewelled dagger. As a child would play
with these things Gilbert played with them, but they stood also in
his mind for freedom, adventure, personal responsibility, and much
else tha