V
A PROPOSITION AND THE PAST
The day was brilliant and sunlit when Clara Probita arrived in Rome on the barge from Ostia. It was a relief, for Rome was not the same in the rain, and she always remembered it in sunlight. She was not sure why she found that she could not enter Rome prior to the appointed day, but the thought of it made her nervous, and so she had rented an apartment for several days in Ostia, as if preparing herself for the coming encounter.
Rome held many memories for her, some warm and comforting, some painful, and some just plain awkward. After so many years, the letter from Felix Modestus had jarred her usually calm demeanour. She had thought of nothing else since her final days in Sicilia. However, when she boarded the ship for Ostia, she felt no regrets about her so
