Marcello knew it too and did not answer at once, for it was not easy to decide what he ought to do.  The problem that had seemed so hard to solve a few hours earlier was fast getting altogether beyond solution.  There was only one thing to be done in the first present difficulty; he must take Regina to some other place at once.  No doubt this was easy enough.  He would take an apartment for her elsewhere, as far as possible from the scene of the tragedy, and in a few hours she could be installed there out of the way of annoyance.  He could buy a house for her if he chose, for he was very rich.  Possibly some house already belonging to him was vacant; his lawyer would know.

But after that, what was to come?  If Corbario lived, there would be a sensational trial in which he and Regina would be witnesses together, and Kalmon too, and very surely Aurora and her mother.  For Aurora would be called upon to tell what she knew of Marcello’s movements on the morning when he had been knocked down near the gap.

Every moment of his past life would be publicly examined, to prove Corbario’s guilt.  Worse than that, there would be a long inquiry to show that Corbario had murdered his mother.  Skilled surgeons were tending the man’s wounds and reviving him by every means that science could suggest.  Kalmon said that he might live.  He was being kept alive in order to be condemned to the expiation of his crimes in penal servitude, since Italian law could not make him pay for them with his life.  The man would be watched by day and night, lest he should try to commit suicide, for he was to suffer, if he lived.  He was to suffer horribly, without doubt, and it was right and just that he should.  But Marcello would suffer too.  That was not just.  The name of his saintly mother would be in the mouths of all kinds of witnesses, in the columns of all sorts of newspapers.  Lawyers would make speeches about her to excite the pity of the jury and to turn the whole tide of feeling against Corbario.  Marcello would himself be held up to public commiseration, as one of Corbario’s victims.  There would be allusions covert and open to Regina and to the position in which she stood to Marcello.  There would be talk about Aurora.  People would suddenly remember her mother’s sad story and gossip about her; people would certainly say that there had been talk about marrying Aurora to Marcello, and that Regina had come between them.  Yes, there would be much talk about Aurora; that was certain.

All this was coming, and was not far off, if Corbario lived; and even if he died there would be a vast amount said and written about all the people concerned.

And Regina was there, beside him, telling him that if they were married they could go on living in the little house, just as if nothing had happened.  It was not true, but he could not find heart to tell her so.  It was the first time that any suggestion of marriage had come from her, who had always told him that marriage was impossible.  If she wished it now, could he refuse?