This scene took place on a Saturday. On Sunday Ignatius told me I must leave the convent before 7 a.m. on the following morning, giving to the reverend Mother orders to give me £2, and to supply me with all necessary clothing. I sent this message back:
“I do not need anything at all; but will the reverend Mother please let me have the box of clothes I brought back with me.”
After some hours the box was sent to me with my clothes all turned about, and with the following message:
“The reverend Mother was obliged to look over your clothes, to see what you wanted.”
I found that she had put two old table napkins full of holes, in the box, two old towels full of darns, and two coarse tea cloths (which treasures I keep to this day), a petticoat; and besides these she gave me permission to keep a new habit. I examined closely the contents of my box, and found that a dictionary, a quantity of fine linen and other things had been taken from it. I asked her for the linen, saying that I had bought it with money my brother had given me before I returned. She sent back this message:
“Tell her I have taken nothing but what belongs to me.”
I imagined she meant that as I had taken the vow of poverty, she had a right to give or retain whatever she liked. After I had taken my departure, I wrote for my things, but I never received an answer.
This was the second time I had left convent life, which had so often been described to me as “angelic.” I had endured quite enough of its misery.
It will be as well, before making the very few remarks I am able to give on the alleged “apparitions at Llanthony,” that I should give my readers a few extracts from Father Ignatius’s oration on the subject, which was delivered on Tuesday evening, May 5th, 1885, at, as far as I recollect, Westminster Town Hall. This oration was based professedly on Hebrews xii. 1: “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses,” etc. It would appear from this oration that Ignatius looks upon the alleged supernatural events at Llanthony as affording witness to the truth of nineteenth century Christianity. Let Ignatius tell his own story:
_Apparition 1._—On Monday, the 30th of August, 1880, Brother Dunstan went as usual, at 9 o’clock, into the church to take his watch before the blessed Sacrament. He was kneeling about twenty feet from the altar. At the south side of the altar there is a large window, which was not then filled with stained glass, and consequently a bright light shone upon the altar. The brother who left the watch had no communication with the sister who next came in to take her watch. She (Sister Janet) had been a schoolmistress in the neighbourhood for many years, and was now an associate of our Order.