It was his liver; his liver, and his head, and his stomach, and his heart.

Every organ in his body had been destroyed, or was in the course of destruction.

His father had killed himself with brandy; the son, more elevated in his tastes, was doing the same thing with curacoa, maraschino, and cherry-bounce.
"Sir Louis," said the doctor--he was obliged to be much more punctilious with him than he had been with the contractor--"the matter is in your own hands entirely: if you cannot keep your lips from that accursed poison, you have nothing in this world to look forward to; nothing, nothing!" Mary proposed to return with her uncle to Greshamsbury, and he was at first well inclined that she should do so.

But this idea was overruled, partly in compliance with Lady Scatcherd's entreaties, and partly because it would have seemed as though they had both thought the presence of its owner had made the house an unfit habitation for decent people.

The doctor therefore returned, leaving Mary there; and Lady Scatcherd busied herself between her two guests.
On the next day Sir Louis was able to come down to a late dinner, and Mary was introduced to him.