Sometimes they’d ask me questions by the hour—I guess there was nothing they didn’t know about the third degree!—but somehow I managed to hold my own. The strain of it was awful, though. …
“They took me back to Ireland, and over every step of the journey again, in case I’d hidden it somewhere en route. Mrs. Vandemeyer and another woman never left me for a moment. They spoke of me as a young relative of Mrs. Vandemeyer’s whose mind was affected by the shock of the Lusitania . There was no one I could appeal to for help without giving myself away to them , and if I risked it and failed—and Mrs. Vandemeyer looked so rich, and so beautifully dressed, that I felt convinced they’d take her word against mine, and think it was part of my mental trouble to think myself ‘persecuted’—I felt that the horrors in store for me would be too awful once they knew I’d been only shamming.”
Sir James nodded comprehendingly.
“ Mrs. Vandemeyer was a woman of great personality. With that and her social position she would have had little difficulty in imposing her point of view in preference to yours. Your sensational accusations against her would not easily have found credence.”
“That’s what I thought. It ended in my being sent to a