with Father Rice. They found Gilbert in
an armchair reading the catechism "pulling faces and making noises as
he used to do when reading."

He got up and stuffed the catechism in his pocket. At lunch he
drank water and poured wine for everyone else. About three they set
out for the Church. Suddenly Father O'Connor asked G.K. if he had
brought the Ritual. G.K. plunged his hand in his pocket, pulled out a
threepenny shocker with complete absence of embarrassment, and went
on searching till at last he found the prayer book.

While G.K. was making his confession to Father O'Connor, Frances
and Father Rice went out of the chapel and sat on the yokels' bench
in the bar of the inn. She was weeping.

After the baptism the two priests came out and left Gilbert and
Frances inside. Father Rice went back for something he had forgotten
and he saw them coming down the aisle. She was still weeping, and
Gilbert had his arm round her comforting her. . . .

He wrote the sonnet on his conversion that day. He was in brilliant
form for the rest of the day, quoting poetry and jesting in the
highest spirits. . . .

He joined the Church "to restore his innocence." Sin was almost the
greatest reality to him. He became a Catholic because of the Church's
practical power of dealing with sin.

Immediately, he wrote to his mother and to Maurice Baring, who had
anxiously feared he had perhaps offended Gilbert, so long was it
since he had heard from him.

MY DEAREST MOTHER,

I write this (with the worst pen in South Bucks) to tell you
something before I write about it to anyone else; something about
which we shall probably be in the position of the two bosom friends
at Oxford, who "never differed except in opinion." You have always
been so wise in not judging people by their opinions, but rather the
opinions by the people. It is in one sense a long story by this time;
but I have come to the same conclusion that Cecil did about needs of
the modern world in religion and right dealing, and I am now a
Catholic in the same sense as he, having long claimed the name in its
Anglo-Catholic sense. I am not going to make a foolish fuss of
reassuring you about things I am sure you never doubted; these things
do not hurt any relations between people as fond of each other as we
are; any more than they ever made any difference to the love between
Cecil an