Copyright by the London Stereoscopic Co.
RIGHT HON. A. AKERS DOUGLAS, M.P.,
British Home Secretary at time of Mrs. Maybrick’s release.
On Monday, the 25th of January, I was awakened early, and after laying aside, for the last time, the garments of shame and disgrace, I was clothed once more in those that represent civilization and respectability. I descended to the court below, and, accompanied by the chief matron and my escort, passed silently through the great gates and out of the prison. At half-past six a cab drove quietly up, and the matron and I silently stepped in and were driven away to the Aylesbury Station. On our arrival in London we proceeded at once to Paddington Station. The noise and the crowds of people everywhere bewildered me.
In Retreat at Truro
After an uneventful journey we arrived at Truro at six P.M., and drove at once to the Home of the Community of the Epiphany, where I stayed during the remainder of my term of six months. I am told that some comment has been made on the fact that the Home was a religious retreat, and that I ought to have been sent to a secular one instead. I went there entirely of my own desire. On our arrival there I bade a last farewell to my kind companion—one of the sweetest women it has been my privilege to meet. The Mother Superior, who had visited me three months previously at Aylesbury Prison, received me tenderly, and at once conducted me to my room. How pure and chaste everything looked after the cold, bare walls of my prison cell! How the restful quiet soothed my jarred and weakened nerves, and, above all, what comforting balm the dear Mother Superior and the sweet sisters poured into the wounds of my riven soul!
I look back upon the six months spent within those sacred walls as the most peaceful and the happiest—in the true sense—of my life. The life there is so calm, so holy, and yet so cheerful, that one becomes infected, so that the sad thoughts flee away, the drooping hands are once more uplifted, and the heart strengthened to perform the work that a loving God may have ordained.
I passed several hours of each day working in the sewing-room with the sisters. During my leisure time I read much, and when the weather was fine delighted in taking long walks within the lovely grounds that surround the Home. I did not go out in the country, nor attend the services on Sunday at the Cathedral.
I left Truro on the 20th of July a free woman—with a ticket-of-leave, it is true, but as I am exempt from police supervision even in England, I have no need to consider it in America or elsewhere.