If the sufferer should survive until they reached Poitiers, where there would be half an hour's stoppage, all possible help might be given to him.
But on the other hand he might suddenly expire.

However, they ended by becoming somewhat calmer.

The man, though still unconscious, began to breathe in a more regular manner, and seemed to fall asleep.
"To think of it, to die before getting there," murmured Marie with a shudder, "to die in sight of the promised land!" And as her father sought to reassure her she added: "I am suffering--I am suffering dreadfully myself." "Have confidence," said Pierre; "the Blessed Virgin is watching over you." She could no longer remain seated, and it became necessary to replace her in a recumbent position in her narrow coffin.

Her father and the priest had to take every precaution in doing so, for the slightest hurt drew a moan from her.

And she lay there breathless, like one dead, her face contracted by suffering, and surrounded by her regal fair hair.