The last days were spent in burning excitement. Nothing that I can say will explain the feeling I had that I was going to be free once more. The food, the clothes, the getting up at 5.30 a.m., these were bad enough, but they were as nothing compared to the incessant brutal treatment of the official manner, as with Mrs. Macdonald more especially, but also with Mrs. Duval, Miss Lawless, and others; in the constantly being ordered about and spoken to as if one had no feelings or perceptions, there was nothing but an extreme severity of manner without the smallest variation. On the third or fourth day before our last, someone had a visitor while we were at associated labour. On her return along the line she said to me: “A speech is expected of you; they hope great things of you at the feast.” My heart gave one bound. This meant release without a doubt, but a speech! How was it such a thing was expected of me? “I’ll simply tell some of the things that take place here,” I thought, and I felt that this was necessary.
The morning of March 24 we were released. My excitement was great, I had not slept, and from 4.30 onwards it was impossible to keep quiet. At 5.30 we were called in the regulation way and towards 7 we were taken down to other cells. I was put into one with a stranger whom I had not seen before. She was a servant, a lady’s maid, who had left her last place, or, rather, they had left her, because of her opinions. She had determined to go in for the Deputation, although probably it would mean that she got no place again.[8] The cell where we were was dirty and smelt horribly, but I said nothing, hoping that my companion would not notice it. She soon did, however, for the smell nearly made her faint. I was given a packet of letters--a large heap from friends and strangers all the world over. At the head of the telegrams was a two-sheet one from our baker in the country, sent off the moment I was a prisoner, addressed to “The Castle where Suffragettes are confined, Holloway,” most anxious about my food, and might he send the special bread he always made for me! I read my mother’s letter again and again; it was all kindness, and I could hardly wait to see her. We were arranged in a long, close file, in the same order in which we had been ushered in, and put to stand in the big gateway. I never knew what it was that kept us, but there we stood for nearly an hour. A wardress or two were watching us, and we were not allowed to move. At last the big doors were unbolted, we were half pushed from where we stood, we were out in the open--we were free. My sister and her eldest girl and boy had somehow gained permission to come within the outer gates. I saw them and forgot all else. There was no release-breakfast feast; we were told that we were to meet that evening at the Inns of Court Hotel and make our speeches there.