Thus in great anguish of mind and body passed nine terrible days, each one longer and more acutely miserable than the preceding. Towards the last, I was mercifully half unconscious of my surroundings. A curious indifference took possession of my over-wrought mind, and it was almost without emotion that I heard, on the morning of the tenth day, that I was to be released temporarily in order to recover my health. The Governor came to my cell and read me my licence, which commanded me to return to Holloway in fifteen days, and meanwhile to observe all the obsequious terms as to informing the police of my movements. With what strength my hands retained I tore the document in strips and dropped it on the floor of the cell. "I have no intention," I said, "of obeying this infamous law. You release me knowing perfectly well that I shall never voluntarily return to any of your prisons."
They sent me away, sitting bolt upright in a cab, unmindful of the fact that I was in a dangerous condition of weakness, having lost two stone in weight and suffered seriously from irregularities of heart action. As I left the prison I was gratefully aware of groups of our women standing bravely at the gates, as though enduring a long vigil. As a matter of fact, relays of women had picketed the place night and day during the whole term of my imprisonment. The first pickets were arrested, but as others constantly arrived to fill their places the police finally gave in and allowed the women to march up and down before the prison carrying the flag.
At the nursing home to which I was conveyed I learned that Annie Kenney, Mrs. Drummond, and our staunch friend, Mr. George Lansbury,[5] had been arrested during my imprisonment, and that all three had adopted the hunger strike. I also learned on my own account how desperately the Government were striving to make their Cat and Mouse Act--the last stand in their losing campaign--a success. Without regard to the extra expense laid on the unfortunate tax payers of the country, the Government employed a large extra force of police especially for this purpose. As I lay in bed, being assisted by every medical resource to return to life and health, these special police, colloquially termed "Cats," guarded the nursing home as if it were a besieged castle. In the street under my windows two detectives and a constable stood on guard night and day. In a house at right angles to my refuge three more detectives kept constant watch. In the mews at the rear of the house were more detectives, and diligently patrolling the road, as if in expectation of a rescuing regiment, two taxicabs, each with its quota of detectives, guarded the highways.