We soothed and comforted her by such words as we could find.

Did she know where her husband was?
Was it possible that we could bring him back to her?
It seems that it was.

She had the surest information that of late he had, when the fit was on him, made use of an opium den in the farthest east of the City.

Hitherto his orgies had always been confined to one day, and he had come back, twitching and shattered, in the evening.

But now the spell had been upon him eight-and-forty hours, and he lay there, doubtless among the dregs of the docks, breathing in the poison or sleeping off the effects.