V. C by David Christie Murray

There was no sleep in the grey-stone house on the Beacon Hill, on that eventful night on which Polson Jervase left his home, for anybody except the domestics, who were ignorant of the blow which had fallen on the household. Jervase made no pretence of courting sleep at all: but having banked up the fire he went down into the cellar, brought up a couple of bottles of brandy, and prepared himself to make a night of it. It had not been his habit for years to drink to excess, but in his earlier days at any time of trouble he had gone to that false solace, and now the instinct came back to him. James kept him company awhile in his potations, but by and by crept off to bed, and Jervase sat alone drinking fiercely, at first without apparent effect.

General Boswell rose before dawn without having closed an eye, and waited for the daylight. At its first dawning he walked softly to the room in which Irene lay and tapped quietly at the door.