one o'clock in the morning
When he returned that night she ran at him with a knife , and he had only just time to ward off the blow . The house rang with shrieks and cries of all sorts , and the Lennoxes were driven from one lodging-house to another . Trousers , dresses , hats , boots and shoes , were all pawned . The comic and the pitiful are but two sides of the same thing , and it was at once comic and pitiful to see Dick , with one of the tails of his coat lost in the scrimmage , talking at one o'clock in the morning to a dispassionate policeman , while from the top windows the high treble voice of a woman disturbed the sullen tranquillity of the London night . And yet Dick continued with her -- continued to allow himself to be beaten , scratched , torn to pieces almost as he would be by a wild beast . Human nature can habituate itself even to pain , and it was so with him . He knew that his present life was as a Nessus shirt on his back , and yet he could n't make up his mind to have done with it .