"Well, she's perfectly darling and the little town is just an exquisite setting for her. Do you know what this soft moonlight aspect of Providence reminds me of, with those tall poplars down the Road and the wide-roofed houses and barns? The little village in Lombardy where--where I met--my fate." "Met your fate?" asked the Doctor quickly after a moment. His face was in the shadow and not a note in his voice betrayed his anxiety. "Yes," answered the singer lady in a dreamy, reminiscent voice. The moon shone full down into her very lovely face, fell across her white throat and shimmered into the faint rose folds of her dainty gown. Her close, dark braids showed black against the fragrant wistaria vines and her eyes were deep and velvety in the soft light. "Yes, it was the summer I was eighteen and I had gone over with my father for a month or two of recuperation for him after a long extra session of Congress. Monsieur LaTour was staying in the little village, also recuperating. He heard me singing to father, and that night my fate was sealed. It was a wonderful thing to come to me--and I was so young." "Tell me about it," said the Doctor quietly, and his voice was perfectly steady, though his heart pounded like mad and his cigar shook in his fingers. "My father died at the end of the summer, after only a few day's illness, and he had grown to believe what LaTour said of my voice, and to have great confidence in my future. I had no near relatives and in his will he left me to Monsieur LaTour and Madame, his wife. She is an American and her father had been in the Senate with father for years. Monsieur is a very great teacher, perhaps the greatest living. Madame wanted to come to Providence with me, but Doctor Stein insisted that I come alone. I--I'm very glad she didn't, though they both love me and await--" She paused and leaned her flower head back against the wistaria vine. And the great breath that Doctor Thomas Mayberry of Providence drew might have cracked the breast of a giant. In this world no record is kept of the great moments when a private individual's universe collides with his far star and of the crash that ensues. "I rather thought you meant another--another kind of fate. I was preparing for confidences," he managed to say in a very small voice for so large a man. "Mais, non, Monsieur, jamais--never!" she exclaimed quickly. "I--I--have been tempted to think sometimes I might like that sort--of a--fate, but I haven't had the time. It was work, work, sleep, eat, live for the voice! And--and once or twice it has seemed worth while. My debut night in Paris when I sang the Juliette waltz-song-just the moment when I realized I could use it as I would and always more volume--and the people! And again the night in New York when I had made it incarnate Elizabeth as she sings to Tannhauser--the night it went away." And as she spoke she dropped her head on her arms folded across her knees.