Her thin clasped hands seemed wringing each other into strange shapes of woe; and though she stood erect as a slender pillar against the black rock, it was rather from the courage of despair than because she was straight and tall by her own nature.
I bent low before her, awed by the extremity of suffering I saw.
"Are you Signor Grandi ?" she asked, in a low and trembling voice.
"Most humbly at your service, Signora Contessina," I answered.

She put out her hand to me, and then drew it back quickly, with a timid nervous look as I moved to take it.
"I never saw you," she said, "but I feel as though you _must_ be a friend--" She paused.
"Indeed, signorina, I am here for that reason," said I, trying to speak stoutly, and so to inspire her with some courage.

"Tell me how I can best serve you; and though I am not young and strong like Nino Cardegna, my boy, I am not so old but that I can do whatsoever you command." "Then in God's name, save me from this--" But again the sentence died upon her lips, and she glanced anxiously at the door.

I reflected that if anyone came we should be caught like mice in a trap, and I made as though I would look out upon the stairs.

But she stopped me.
"I am foolishly frightened," she said.