he is to be restored to us. Physically he is
stronger, and the brain is beginning to work normally, and soon I
trust we shall be able to ask him his wishes with regard to the
Church. I am so thankful to think that we can get at his desire.

In January 1915 Frances wrote to my mother: "Gilbert remains much the
same in a semi-conscious condition--sleeping a great deal. I feel
absolutely hopeless; it seems impossible it can go on like this. The
impossibility of reaching him is too terrible an experience and I
don't know how to go through with it. I pray for strength and you
must pray for me."

"Dearest Josephine," she wrote in a later undated letter, "Gilbert is
today a little better, after being practically at a standstill for
the past week. He asked for me today, which is a great advance, and
hugged me. I feel like Elijah (wasn't it?) and shall go in the
strength of that hug forty days. The recovery will be very slow, the
doctors tell me, and we have to prevent his using his brain at all."

In this letter she begged to see my mother, and I remember when they
met she told her that one day she had tried to test whether Gilbert
was conscious by asking him, "Who is looking after you?" "He answered
very gravely, 'God' and I felt so small," she said. Presently Frances
told my mother that Gilbert had talked to her about coming into the
Catholic Church. It was just at this time that she wrote to tell
Father O'Connor that Gilbert said to her "Did you think I was going
to die?" and followed this with the question, "Does Father O'Connor
know?" After her conversation with my mother Frances wrote to her:

March 21

I think I would rather you did not tell anyone just yet of what I
told you regarding my husband and the Catholic Church. Not that I
doubt for a moment that he meant it and knew what he was saying and
was relieved at saying it, but I don't want the world at large to be
able to say that he came to this decision, when he was weak and
unlike himself. He will ratify it no doubt when his complete manhood
is restored. I know it was not weakness that made him say it, but you
will understand my scruples. I know in God's good time he will make
his confession of faith--and if death comes near him again I shall
know how to act.

Thanks for all your sympathy. I _did_ enjoy seeing you.

On Easter Eve Frances wrote two letters, one to Father O'Connor, one
to my mother. To Father O'Conn