One would have turned twice to see.

The quantities of spirits that he drank (he ate little) would have killed a half-dozen healthy men.

To him it was food, taken up, absorbed by the fever of his disease, giving him a real, not a fictitious strength; and so it would continue to do till some artery burst and choked him, or else, by some miracle of air and climate, the hole in his lung healed up again; which he, in his elation, believed would be "to-morrow." Perhaps the air, the food, and life of Bonaventure were the one medicine he needed! But, in the moment Nicolas said to him that Bonaventure was just over the hill, that they would be able to see it now, he had a sudden feeling of depression.

He felt that he would give anything to turn back.

A perspiration broke out on his forehead and his cheek.