Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/299

 "You can never, never!" she pleaded with clasped hands. "I do entreat you."

Roderick turned and looked at her, and then in a voice which Rowland had never heard him use, a voice which roused the echoes of the mighty ruin, "Sit down!" he thundered. She hesitated a moment, after which she sank to the ground and buried her face in her hands.

Rowland had seen all this and he saw what fol lowed. He saw Roderick clasp in his left arm the jagged corner of the vertical partition on which he proposed to try his experiment, then stretch out his leg and feel for a resting-place for his foot. Rowland had measured with a hard stare and a dry throat the possibility of his holding on, and pronounced it uncommonly small. The wall was garnished with a series of narrow projections, the remains apparently of a brick cornice supporting the arch of a vault which had long since collapsed. It was by lodging his toes on these loose brackets, and grasping with his hands at certain mouldering protuberances on a level with his head, that Roderick intended to proceed. The relics of the cornice were utterly worthless as a support. Rowland's sharpened sense had made sure of this, and yet for a moment he had hesitated. If the thing were possible he felt a sudden high bold relish of his friend's attempting it. It would be finely done, it would be gallant, it would have a sort of ardent authority as an answer to Christina's sinister persiflage. But it was not possible! Rowland left his place with a bound and scrambled down a near flight of steps, and the next moment a stronger pair of 265