"I got through the days, but the nights were terrible; all the great army of forsaken lovers know that the nights are the worst. I used to lie awake hour after hour, sobbing and crying for mercy and strength to endure, and I used to batter my head against the floor, not knowing any one could hear. One night a fellow-lodger, who slept in the next room, came in and begged me to be quiet; she had her work to do, and night after night I kept her awake with my sobbing. 'I suppose it is all about some wretched man,' she observed coolly; 'but, believe me, they are not worth the love we give them. I left my husband some years ago, finding that he had been carrying on with a woman who called herself my friend. At first I cried and sobbed just as you do now; but I felt such a fool making such a fuss about a man who had played it down so low, that I made up my mind I would forget him; and in time you will get over this, and give thanks that you have been delivered from a liar and a traitor.' "She gave me a glass of strong brandy and water; it was the first I had ever tasted, and I remember how it ran warm through my veins, and how I slept as I had not slept for months. "My fellow-lodger and I became great friends; she was quite an uneducated woman, the matron of a laundry, but she braced me up like a tonic with her keen humour and experience of life. "How strange it seems for a middle-aged drunkard in a pauper infirmary to be telling this ancient love-tale, and posing as one of 'the aristocracy of passionate souls,' But _tout passe tout casse_, and after years of anguish and strife I woke up one bright spring morning and felt that I was cured and for ever free of the wild passion of love. That day always stands out as the happiest of my life. I shall never forget it. It was Saturday, and a holiday; and I got on my bicycle and rode off for miles far into the country singing the _Benedicite_ for pure joy. I lunched at a little inn on the Thames, and ordered some champagne to celebrate the recovery of my liberty. "But by strange irony of fate the very day I escaped from the toils of love I fell under another tyranny--that of alcohol. Now, Peg"--I started at the unfamiliar old nickname of my school days--"I believe you are crying. Having shed more than my own share of tears, nothing irritates me so much as to see other women cry, and if you don't stop I'll not say another word." I drew my handkerchief across my eyes and admitted to a cold in the head.