Not till you do!" And she grasped his arm with both hands.
Roderick shook her off and pointed with a violent gesture to her former place.

"Go there!" he cried fiercely.
"You can never, never!" she murmured beseechingly, clasping her hands.
"I implore you!" Roderick turned and looked at her, and then in a voice which Rowland had never heard him use, a voice almost thunderous, a voice which awakened the echoes of the mighty ruin, he repeated, "Sit down!" She hesitated a moment and then she dropped on the ground and buried her face in her hands.
Rowland had seen all this, and he saw more.

He saw Roderick clasp in his left arm the jagged corner of the vertical partition along which he proposed to pursue his crazy journey, stretch out his leg, and feel for a resting-place for his foot.

Rowland had measured with a glance the possibility of his sustaining himself, and pronounced it absolutely nil.
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.