Since the Cavaliere's report of her condition she had somewhat smoothed and trimmed the exuberance of her distress, but she was evidently in extreme tribulation, and she clutched Rowland by his two hands, as if, in the shipwreck of her hopes, he were her single floating spar.

Rowland greatly pitied her, for there is something respectable in passionate grief, even in a very bad cause; and as pity is akin to love, he endured her rather better than he had done hitherto.
"Speak to her, plead with her, command her!" she cried, pressing and shaking his hands.

"She 'll not heed us, no more than if we were a pair of clocks a-ticking.

Perhaps she will listen to you; she always liked you." "She always disliked me," said Rowland.

"But that does n't matter now.
I have come here simply because you sent for me, not because I can help you.