Some women were wailing over a little boy whose leg had been crushed and who was uttering frightful shrieks. The child screamed so terribly that Brinnaria impulsively leaned half-way out of her litter, carried away by her sympathies. Close beside her she saw the white horse and astride of it, vague in the mist, but unmistakable in his lop-sided, bony leanness, outlined against the glare of the torches behind him, she recognized Calvaster. Instantly she shrank behind her litter curtains. Almost at once a relief bearer who had gone to scout reported a free path through the fields by the road. They continued on their way. Bovillae, not being one of the towns participating in the Festival of Diana, was closed for the night, its gates shut fast, its walls dark. Going round it was a trying detour over rough cross-roads. After they were again on the Appian Road they were for a second time overtaken by the same band of horsemen. When their hoof-beats had grown faint in the distance ahead, Vocco ranged his horse alongside the litter and asked: “Did you notice the man on the white horse?” “I recognized him,” said Brinnaria briefly. The fog held all the way to the Appian Gate, which they reached as some watery sun-rays struggled through the mist, held until they reached the Atrium. Out of her litter tumbled Brinnaria in Flexinna’s rumpled finery, feeling unescapably recognizable, even inside her double veil and under her broad-brimmed, tied-down travelling hat. But the heavy-built, sinewy slave-woman who guarded the portal of the Atrium passed her in without remark. She met no one on her way up to her suite, where she found Utta squatted outside her bedroom door. Flexinna was incredulously delighted, pathetically overjoyed to see her. “You have a wonderful larder here,” she said. “Every single thing I asked for was b-b-brought me at once. I d-d-didn’t have any appetite, b-b-but I had to have food. And I g-g-got it.” Promptly she put on her own clothing and was gone. In a trice Brinnaria was flat on her back in bed with Utta massaging her vigorously and methodically. After one comprehensive rubbing she went off for hot milk, hot wine, honey, barley-meal and spices. The posset she brewed she compelled her mistress to swallow. Then she gently massaged her until she was asleep. Thanks to these attentions Brinnaria, after some four hours abed, was able to reappear in the Temple looking not much unlike a Vestal who had enjoyed twenty-four hours of unbroken repose. Numisia appeared to suspect nothing. Certainly she remonstrated with her and begged her not to exhaust herself so by hard riding. After that first sleep, induced by fatigue and by Utta’s ministrations, Brinnaria slept little. She tossed and turned. Before her eyes was continually the recollection of that row of saffron-clad minxes, of their exuberant health, heartiness and rollicking vivacity.