But my time came at last.

Under the cruel stress laid on it my health gave way.

I was struck down by low fever, and sentence was pronounced on me by my fellow-lodgers: 'Ah, poor thing, _her_ troubles will soon be at an end!' "The prediction might have proved true--I might never have committed the errors and endured the sufferings of after years--if I had fallen ill in another house.
"But it was my good, or my evil, fortune--I dare not say which--to have interested in myself and my sorrows an actress at a suburban theatre, who occupied the room under mine.

Except when her stage duties took her away for two or three hours in the evening, this noble creature never left my bedside.

Ill as she could afford it, her purse paid my inevitable expenses while I lay helpless.