The effect was striking. The brunette straightened up, her chin lifting as she took a deep breath. This time as she looked around the room, her face was relaxed and at peace, a small smile playing around the corners of her lips. The music came to a crescendo, then faded away into a quiet calmness. The woman took another deep breath, then picked up her drink as if to down the remains in a single, radiantly defiant swallow.

She paused, looked into the glass, and set it down untouched. Pulling a couple of well-worn bills out of her purse, she laid them on the counter beside the glass. Then, with her head held high, she walked straight across the room to the door.

And as she lifted her hand to open it, I saw for the first time the glint of the wedding ring on her left hand.

I looked over at Weldon. His eyes were still on the door through which she had disappeared, and as I peered through the smoke it seemed to me that his face was more alive than it had been when he'd first entered the room.

Small wonder. In a few short minutes, with nothing but his music and his genius, he had lifted another human being from despair to hope to confidence.

And as far as I could tell, not a single person in the bar besides me had even a glimmer of what had happened. Probably the woman herself had no idea how her miraculous transformation had been engineered.

For a minute Weldon seemed to savor his victory. Then the satisfaction faded, the protective mask slipped back into place across his features, and his gaze resumed its probing wanderings around the room. All in a night's work, apparently. His eyes touched my face....

And paused.

I held that gaze, trying to look casual and unconcerned and as oblivious as everyone else in the bar, waiting for his eyes to move along. But they didn't. The barroom filler he had resumed playing turned into a questioning lilt, and his eyebrows lifted toward me in