Stately and pleasant, she lent us respectability. With the fine carriage and elegant robes of a well-bred matron, Helena always distracted attention from my rough manners. I managed to conceal the fact that her presence physically distracted me.

You want to talk about my daughter – Let me first show her to you.'

We were astonished, but Caesius merely led us to a cool internal colonnade beside a small courtyard On a Corinthian pedestal stood a half-statue of a young woman. white marble, good quality; a portrait bust with the subject turned slightly to one side, gazing downwards demurely. Her face had been given just enough character to seem taken from life, though the newness of the work suggested the commission was post-mortem.

This is all I have now.

Her name was Marcella Caesia?' Helena asked, studying the statue thoughtfully

Yes. She would have been twenty-one.' The father stared at the bust just a little too long A chair stood close by. He probably brooded here for long hours. For the rest of his life, time would be measured by how old his lost child should have been, had she lived.

He led us back to the original sparsely furnished room Caesius insisted that Helena took a comfortable basket chair with its own footstool, perhaps once his wife's. Arranging her skirts, she glanced at me. I took out a note-tablet and prepared to lead the questioning, though Helena and I would share it; one of us would talk while the other observed.