ARTHUR NEUMANN 161 



because a woman wouldn't love him ? ' I said, 

 ' Why do you ask such a question ? ' She replied, 

 ' Oh, Mother, tell me the truth. He came and told 

 me himself, and is suffering so terribly.' Then she 

 told me how the apparition took place. 



" On the Wednesday following Arthur's death, 

 she was in the church with Mere Paul, helping to 

 clean and dust. She was up a ladder hard at work, 

 when she looked round and saw one of her school 

 friends (whom she knew to be away at the time) 

 coming towards her. She says she felt great 

 surprise and shock at seeing her friend in nun's 

 dress. The nun came up to her and beckoned to 

 her to come down from the ladder, and she tells 

 me it was with a ' curious, funny ' feeling she saw 

 herself on the ladder, and she was on the ground. 

 The nun then took her by the arm and led her 

 away through a side door of the church where she 

 had never been before, and through the nuns' 

 refectory, where no one is allowed, and into their 

 private chapel. She can describe everything and 

 the pictures on the walls. She was brought to one 

 of the pews, where she knelt down, and felt some 

 one near her. She looked up, and she says there 

 was Uncle Neumann standing by her. Her first 

 thoughts were, ' Mother never told me he was coming 

 to Belgium.' But she felt something was wrong, 

 his face bore such terrible suffering. He came up 

 and placed his hand in hers and said, ' N., my life 

 has now passed away. A woman wouldn't love 

 me, and my sufferings are terrible. I never believed 

 what I ought to have on earth. Pray for me.' 

 Earthly prayers, he told her, helped him more. 

 After that the same nun came and led her out of 



M 



