Eventually even Maia sensed a dangerous imbalance in their friendship. Anacrites was too intense for her. She told us they had parted. She would have been tactful. She was even a little upset. If I could see it, he must have known too. He should have withdrawn gracefully.

It was for the best. But would that maggot agree to let go? At last I understood the problem. "Helena, are you saying Anacrites is harassing Maia?"

Helena usually shared her worries with me, though sometimes she hugged them to herself for a long time first. Finally she burst out, "I am frightened for her. She changed so suddenly."

"The children are very quiet." Still, they had lost their father less than a year ago.

"Have you spoken to Anacrites lately, Marcus?" |

"No." I had thought it might be embarrassing. I expected him to plead with me to intercede with Maia. In fact, he had never addressed the point.

If it hurt him to be rejected, he could react very nastily. Maia would not change her mind. So then Anacrites might do anything…

Being the man he was, of course he did.

my sister must have discovered what had happened in the late afternoon. After a normal day working with Pa at the Saepta Julia, she collected the children from my mother's house and returned home. By chance, I came along shortly afterwards. There was never any hope of her hiding the situation. Even before I went into the house, I had sensed the disaster.

As I strolled up the road where they lived, I had seen Maia's three youngest children. She had left them waiting outside; that was unusual. The two girls and Ancus, the nervous one, were clinging together in a group on the pavement, opposite where they lived. Marius, the eldest, was missing (in defiance of his mother, I learned later, he had raced off trying to find me). Maia's street door was open.