object, Fabia, who, perfectly unconscious of his state of
fascination, sat with flushed cheeks and bright, eager eyes, watching
the fortunes of the races, or turned now and then to speak a few words
to little Livia, who was at her side. When the games were over,
Gabinius struggled through the crowd after the Vestal, and kept near
to her until she had reached her litter and the eight red-liveried
Cappadocian porters bore her away. Gabinius continued to gaze after
her until Fabia drew the leather curtains of her conveyance and was
hid from sight.

"_Perpol!"_ reflected Gabinius. "How utterly enslaved I am!"

* * * * *

The following morning Fabia received a letter in a strange hand,
asking her to come to a villa outside the Porta Capena, and receive a
will from one Titus Denter, who lay dying. The receiving and
safe-keeping of wills was a regular duty of Vestals, and Fabia at once
summoned her litter, and started out of the city, along the Via Appia,
until, far out in the suburbs where the houses were wide apart, she
was set down before the country-house indicated. A stupid-appearing
slave-boy received her at the gateway. The villa was old, small, and
in very indifferent repair. The slave could not seem to explain
whether it had been occupied of late, but hastened to declare that his
master lay nigh to death. There was no porter in the outer
vestibule.[107] The heavy inner door turned slowly on its pivot, by
some inside force, and disclosed a small, darkened atrium, only
lighted by a clear sunbeam from the opening above, that passed through
and illumined a playing fountain. A single attendant stood in the
doorway. He was a tall, gaunt man in servile dress, with a rather
sickly smile on his sharp yellow face. Fabia alighted from her litter.
There was a certain secluded uncanniness about the house, which made
her dislike for an instant to enter. The slave in the door silently
beckoned for her to come in. The Vestal informed her bearers that she
was likely to be absent some little time, and they must wait quietly
without, and not annoy a dying man with unseemly laughter or loud
conversation. Then, without hesitancy, Fabia gathered her priestess's
cloak about her, and boldly entered the strange atrium. As she did so,
the attendant noiselessly closed the door, and what was further, shot
home a bolt.

[107] _Ostium_.

"There is no need for that," remarked the Vestal, who never before in