I remember one day I was crying my eyes out on the couch in Mr. O'Donnell's law office when Miss Mary Joyce, the best girl friend I have ever known, came in and tried to quiet me. I cried more and more until a gentleman came in, I think he was a reporter, and then I managed to quit crying until he left. Miss Joyce told him to get out of the place until I was quiet, and he went. After he had gone I began to cry again, and Miss Joyce said not to cry, that some time soon I would be back in Ireland again with the home folks. That only made me cry more, because I did not see how I could face the people at home after the terrible things that had happened to me and after I had been arrested.
Long and long those awful days dragged out from January 9 until February 6. I do not believe that there was a single day that I did not cry until my eyes were all red, and I know that on many a night during that time I cried myself to sleep. I could not bear to think of the shame that had befallen me, although I knew that it was no fault of my own that it had happened to me.
It was all a nightmare. My nerves were breaking gradually under the terrible strain.
Then came my hearing before Judge Hume of the municipal court. I was arraigned on the larceny charge and after Miss Barrett and I had testified my attorneys demanded that I be held to the grand jury, and refused to cross-examine the witnesses for the prosecution, so convinced were they of my innocence.
When this was done Miss Barrett was heard to say, "Oh, my, this is awful." This remark was overheard by Mr. O'Shaughnessey and convinced him more than ever that something was being hidden and that I was not the thief the Wellington hotel people sought to make me out.
During this trial an attempt on the part of Mrs. Kenyon to coach Miss Barrett while she was on the stand brought forth some strong objections from Mr. O'Shaughnessey, and Mrs. Kenyon was compelled to stop attempting to coach Miss Barrett from the floor of the courtroom.
When they tried to make out their case against me at this hearing they brought a number of pieces of lace which had never been in Captain O'Brien's office or in my room, and I said so, and Attorney O'Donnell promptly had them impounded for the purpose of disproving the charge against me later on. He would not let them have them back, nor would he let them have back a pair of stockings of Miss Donahue's which they said I had stolen. This was the first injection of Miss Donahue's name into the case, but it was brought in later after the second attack on me in the Wellington hotel.
At this preliminary hearing I was held on the demand of my own people to the grand jury and was subsequently indicted on their demand that I might be enabled to effectually clear my name. This was the opening of the larceny case, where the alleged theft of $25 worth of lace has caused the expenditure of more than $38,000 all told in prosecution and defense of me, a little Irish working girl.