Woman quietly spoke, then dried up (10)
I believe the answer is:
evaporated
'dried up' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'woman quietly spoke' is the wordplay.
'woman' becomes 'Eva' (woman's name).
'quietly' becomes 'p' (p for piano and quiet).
'spoke' becomes 'orated' (to orate is to give a speech).
'eva'+'p'+'orated'='EVAPORATED'
'then' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for evaporated that I've seen before include "Gradually faded away" , "Disappeared" .)