I think that she alone of all that multitude made no sound, but only gripped the edge of the balcony hard in her white hands, and leaned far forward with straining eyes and beating heart to satisfy her wonder.

She knew well enough, now, that there was no mistake.

The humble little Professor Cardegna, who had patiently explained Dante and Leopardi to her for months, bowing to the ground in her presence, and apologising when he corrected her mistakes, as though his whole life was to be devoted to teaching foreigners his language; the decently clad young man, who was always pale, and sometimes pathetic when he spoke of himself, was no other than Giovanni Cardegna the tenor, singing aloud to earth and heaven with his glorious great voice--a man on the threshold of a European fame, such as falls only to the lot of a singer or a conqueror.

More, he was the singer of her dreams, who had for months filled her thoughts with music and her heart with a strange longing, being until now a voice Only.

There he stood looking straight at her,--she was not mistaken,--as though to say, "I have done it for you, and for you only." A woman must be more than marble to feel no pride in the intimate knowledge that a great public triumph has been gained solely for her sake.