'If you, or our father, or any man like us, were in my position, you would act exactly as I am acting,' he said slowly.
'You are perfectly innocent, and yet you act like a man who is afraid of incriminating himself?' said Orsino, growing impatient at last.
'I am perfectly innocent, at all events,' answered Ippolito, with something like a laugh.
'I am glad that you are so light-hearted about it all. I am not. If we cannot catch the man who really killed Francesco before to-morrow morning, you will be taken down to Messina and imprisoned until we can bail you out, if bail is accepted at all, which I doubt. You run a good chance of being tried for murder. Do you realise that?'
'I cannot help it, if it comes to that,' said Ippolito, quietly puffing at his cigar.
'You can at all events say something to help me in proving your innocence—'
'I am sorry to say that I cannot.'
Orsino made an impatient movement, uncrossing and recrossing one knee over the other.
'You could if you chose,' he said. 'But there is no more terrible obstacle to common sense than a morbidly scrupulous conscience. What do you suppose our people will think, in Rome?'