My life as a
child had been a life in the open air: it had helped to
strengthen a constitution naturally hardy, naturally free from
all taint of hereditary disease. 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. The landlady, moved by her example, accepted half
the weekly rent of my room. The doctor, with the Christian
kindness of his profession, would take no fees. All that the
tenderest care could accomplish was lavished on me; my youth and
my constitution did the rest.
Pages:
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413