While they were busy within, one of the inspectors chanced to look at the closed window, and saw the face of a handsome girl pressed against the pane outside, and a pair of dark eyes anxiously watching what was going on.  The girl was so very uncommonly handsome that the inspector went out to look at her, but she saw him coming and moved away, drawing her cotton kerchief half across her face.  Regina’s only fear was that Mommo might recognise her, in which case she would inevitably be questioned by the carabineers.  It was characteristic of the class in which she had been brought up, that while she entertained a holy dread of being cross-questioned by them, she felt the most complete conviction that Marcello was safe in their hands.  She had meant that he should somehow be taken off the cart at the gate, probably by the inspectors, and conveyed at once to the great hospital near by.  She knew nothing about hospitals, and supposed that when he was once there, she might be allowed to come and take care of him.  It would be easy, she thought, to invent some story to account for her interest in him.  But she could do nothing until Mommo was gone, and he might recognise her figure even if he could not see her face.

Finding that nothing more was wanted of him, and that he was in no immediate danger of penal servitude for having been found with a sick man on his cart, Mommo started his mules up the paved hill towards the church, walking beside them, as the carters mostly do within the city.  The crowd dispersed, the small boys went off in search of fresh matter for contemptuous comment, and Regina went boldly to the door of the guard-house.

“Can I be of any use with the sick man?” she asked of the inspector who had seen her through the window.

The inspector prided himself on his gallantry and good education.

“Signorina,” he said, lifting his round hat with a magnificent gesture, “if you were to look only once at a dying man, he would revive and live a thousand years.”

He made eyes at her in a manner he considered irresistible, and replaced his hat on his head, a little on one side.  Regina had never been called “Signorina” before, and she was well aware that no woman who wears a kerchief out of doors, instead of a hat, is entitled to be addressed as a lady in Rome; but she was not at all offended by the rank flattery of the speech, and she saw that the inspector was a good-natured young coxcomb.

“You are too kind,” she answered politely.  “Do you think I can be of any use?”

“There are the carabineers,” objected the inspector, as if that were a sufficient answer.  “But you may look in through the door and see the sick man.”

“I have seen him through the window.  He looks very ill.”

“Ah, Signorina,” sighed the youth, “if I were ill, I should pray the saints to send you—­”