SPY’S ROMANCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 257, 27 September 1935, Page 15

SPY’S ROMANCE.

CASE OF LYDIA OSWALD. “I swear I never sold secrets to a foreign Power, that Lieutenant Guignard did not believe I was a spy, and that Lieutenant de Forceville did no! suspect that a foreign Power was payint me.” In those words, Lydia Oswald, her eyes filled with tears, answered her accusers on September 15 at Brest, before being sentenced by a naval courtmartial to nine months’ imprisonment for espionage. She will be deported to Switzerland after serving a month of her sentence. J The woman astutely appealed to the ! court-martial officers for chivalry, saying' that she certainly intended to use ; Guignard and de Forceville for her espionage work. “But they were so chivalrous and such perfect gentlemen that I fell desperately in love with Lieutenant de Forceville, who begged I me to marry him. “Realising the treachery of betraying I the man I loved, I resolved to termin--1 ate my espionage. I apologise to the officers for drawing them involuntarily into this affair.” | Jean de Forceville told the Court that he had not believed Oswald was a spy. “I sincerely thought she was joking. How could 1 have possibly believed her? She told so many untruths I” Lydia smiled when her ex-sweetlieart was acquitted. De Forceville wept when the captain of his ship told the Court that love had blinded him, and said: “I preserve all my esteem for him as an officer.”