The drug in this case was her passion for him, which appeared to be very genuine.

But when it passed off, or when he was obliged to refuse her, what, he wondered, would happen then?
Anxiety and confinement told on him far more than all the hardships of his journey.

His health ran down, he began to fall ill.

Then as bad luck would have it, walking in that damp, unwholesome cedar garden, out of which he might not stray, he contracted the germ of some kind of fever which in autumn was very common in this poisonous climate.

Three days later he became delirious, and for a week after that hung between life and death.