Nino had tuned his guitar in the other street, and stood ready, waiting for the clocks to strike.

Presently they clanged out wildly, as though they had been waked from their midnight sleep, and were angry; one clock answering the other, and one convent bell following another in the call to prayers.

For two full minutes the whole air was crazy with ringing, and then it was all still.

Nino struck a single chord.

Hedwig almost thought he might hear her heart beating all the way down the street.
"Ah, del mio dolce ardor bramato ogetto," he sang,--an old air in one of Gluck's operas that our Italian musicians say was composed by Alessandro Stradella, the poor murdered singer.