One night I had occasion to pass the entire night by the bedside of a dying prostitute. She lived in one of four rooms, all occupied by the same class, and all opening into a court not larger than ten feet by ten. I suppose I must have been very tired, for I fell asleep, and about five a. m. I woke and found I was alone, the woman was dead. I went out into the court, hearing a sudden noise of excited voices, and discovered that "Jack" had been at work in the adjoining room, only separated from mine by a match-board partition. Portions of the unfortunate woman were neatly arranged on a deal table. I had heard absolutely nothing. Later on that same day I revisited the scene, and found a curious contrast. Seeing his way to a cheap furnished lodging, a coster had married his donah in a hurry, and the wedding breakfast was being eaten off the blood-stained table! It was in those days that I developed into a convinced Suffragist. I saw that until men and women came together to improve and mold our civilization, very little improvement could be expected. The son of the bondwoman is not on a level with the son of the free woman, and we saw that the struggle must go on until we were accorded the right to govern our own lives. I could always see the anti's point of view, for, had I thought only of my own position as an isolated unit, a vote would have seemed to me a needless responsibility. No social worker who has penetrated to the depths can maintain this attitude, and so, in company with all other women workers, I entered on the crusade which has just terminated in victory. Much as I dislike militancy, I am convinced that it hastened our victory by very many years, by bringing the subject before the world. Also the enormous number of idle and, formerly, indifferent women, who have rushed into work in answer to their country's call, has helped our cause enormously. I have invariably found that directly a woman enters the ranks of active labor, her views, however strongly they have been opposed to us, at once swing round. Once a woman _proves for herself_ the disabilities under which we labor, she is at once converted. To the very many women who suffered acute physical torture during the militant campaign, our easy victory must seem passing strange. CHAPTER V THE MAN IN THE MARYLEBONE ROAD It is thirty years ago since I became a convert to Spiritualism. At that time I made up my mind that I would attend fifty séances, and if, out of that number, I did not come across one that I could be absolutely certain was genuine I would attend no more. Spiritualism, in itself, never interested me, but I was determined to see for myself if there was really anything in it. I attended twenty-nine séances before I happened on one that was absolutely convincing. Several had been almost convincing, but a loophole for fraud had remained, and so long as that was the case I persevered.