"See if you can make a song out of this." Almost furtively, he thrust scraps of paper into my hand.

At home I blinked at the disparate phrases: "Evening shadows fall." " Fair maiden divine." "Empty broken heart." "In his arms she belongs."   I went to work. A week later I delivered a song to him I called "Twilight Waltz". His face was inscrutable but I didn't press him; his words had sufficiently revealed his treachery to his wife.

A year later surfing on the net, I found "A Maiden's Prayer", almost word for word the song I had written.