Fate was not far off. He had gone on some distance, and the crowd had dispersed in various directions, till he was almost alone as he emerged into the open space where the Via del Clementino intersects the Ripetta. At that moment he heard a wild and thrilling burst of song.
"Calpesta il mio cadavere, ma salva il Trovator!"
The great soprano rang out upon the midnight silence, like the voice of a despairing archangel, and there was nothing more.
"Hush!" exclaimed a man's voice energetically.
Two or three windows were opened high up, for no one had ever heard such a woman's voice in the streets before. Reanda peered before him through the gloom, saw three people standing at the next corner, and hastened his long steps. An instinct he could not explain told him that Gloria had sung the short strain, which had left him cold and indifferent when he had heard it in the theatre. He was neither now, and he was possessed by the desire to be sure that it had been she.
He was not mistaken. Griggs had recognized him first, and they had waited for him at the corner.
"It is an unexpected pleasure to meet twice in the same day," said Reanda.
"The pleasure is ours," answered Dalrymple, in the correct phrase, but with his peculiar accent. "I suppose you heard my daughter's screams," he added drily. "She was explaining to us how a particular phrase should be sung."
"Was I not right?" asked Gloria, quickly appealing to Reanda with the certainty of support.
"A thousand times right," he answered. "How could one be wrong with such a voice?"