Tens of thousands had turned their backs upon it, leaving with slow feet, some to live in distant, inhospitable lands, some to die of fever and the sword, some to return forgotten of their kindred, and some few with laurels of renown; but all of these many who went away were leaving, for long or forever, love and home and peace.
"The army is sucking our blood, and Hate grows while Love is starving," Vergilius reflected, as he went along, while a hideous, unwelcome thought grew slowly, creeping over him.

This golden mile-stone was the centre of a great spider-web laced by road and sea way to the far corners of the empire; and that cunning, alert man--who was he but the spider?
"And I--what am I, now, but one of his flies caught in the mighty web ?" he thought.

"Love and its peace have come to me and I shall know them--for three days--and perhaps no longer." His wealth and rank and influence might, if used with diplomacy, have kept him at home, for, after all, he was a Varro; but Arria had been used to press him into bondage.
"Another test!" he said to himself.

"Ah, what a cunning old fox! He needed a spy, and one of character and noble blood.

How well he tested my cleverness! And now I am his, body and soul.".